Man Boobs, Oestrogen Pollution & Can We Trust The Water We Drink?

I don’t know if it’s because writing this blog means I have man boobs on the brain, but these days
I seem to be seeing the darn things everywhere. It’s summer in these parts, of course, which means that guys are finding them harder to conceal because of the heat and humidity. But even taking the weather into account, forget swine flu, the real pandemic seems to be man breast.

It’s almost got to the point where a guy with man breasts is the becoming exception rather than the rule. I was watching the world 20 20 cricket tournament last month. South Africa were playing and it seemed like at least half the team had a moob thing going on! These were professional athletes! What’s going on? When the sportsmen start sprouting em what hope is there for the rest of us right?

I’m kidding of course. Kind of. The fact is this summer man breast madness got me pondering seriously on a subject which I had been avoiding for a while. That’s the possibility that there might be more to this man boobs pandemic than just bad lifestyle choices – lack of fitness and poor diet etc. That’s not to say these things aren’t a factor. If you’ve read any of my advice for how to get rid of man boobs then you’ll know I take that stuff deadly seriously… but you know what?… there’s still this niggling doubt in my mind that there may be other factors involved that we haven’t fully understood. I touched it in my article about the causes of gynecomastia, but I want to talk about it more depth here.

I’m talking about oestrogen pollution, and specifically oestrogen pollution of our water supplies.

One of the reasons I’ve avoided talking about it before is because on some levels it sounds a bit paranoid, like one of those wacky conspiracy theories that claims the government controls us through medicating our drinking water. But in fact a quick search you know where throws up plenty of material published by reputable academics, institutions and media outlets, all voicing serious concern about the issue.

These people aren’t whack jobs. Here’s one particularly unsettling report from the UK press in 2002.

It describes half of fish in lowland rivers changing sex. Permanently. Sperm rates in Britain falling dramatically for half a century. One third of all drinking water supplies potentially at risk.

Now this stuff may or may not be a concern for you depending on where you live and what the source of your drinking water is, but for anyone who, like me, lives in an area that uses retreated water, this stuff has the potential to cause you some very sleepless nights.

The thing is, I always thought that there was a simple way around this issue and that was to drink bottled water. But guess what. Looks like there are some people out there that think that may not be such a good idea either.

Chemicals in plastic bottles leaching Xenoestrogens directly into the water you’re about to drink after your workout? That’s something to worry about, no matter where you live.

If the findings of the bottle study are true, and I have to admit that the information I can find on the subject is patchy at best, then it really is going to cause a problem. Oestrogen in the drinking water. Oestrogen in the bottled water.

Can’t a man get a clean swig of H20 these days?

Now, to be clear I am not saying that oestrogen in the water you drink is directly responsible for your man boob problem. I managed to get rid of mine despite the litres and litres of the stuff I drink every day. But I am suggesting that it may be a contributing factor for some people, something that may just make them more susceptible to the condition than they would be if they had accessl had access to uncontaminated water.

More studies are required. For my part, over the next few weeks I’m going to start taking a new, in depth survey of visitors to this site, which will chart all sorts of lifestyle habits including the kind and source of water that we drink. I’m hoping it will throw up some interesting insights.

Hope to see you there.

Edit: The survey referred to in this post is located here. Man boobs sufferers, please complete!

Tagged as: Causes of man boobs, drinking water, man boobs diet, oestrogen, oestrogen pollution, Xenoestrogens