Do beauty products impact fertility?
Are our beauty and cleaning products impacting our fertility?
The answer to this isn’t as straightforward as a quick google search may have you believing. A lot of marketing goes in to making us believe we need “cleaner” products - for our homes, skincare, beauty products etc. Most of this is centred around minimizing endocrine disrupting chemicals - EDCs. These are chemicals that disrupt our hormones either by mimicking or blocking their actions. There is some research showing that some of these chemicals do seem to impact fertility - both male and female - to some degree, but the context matters!
Human studies are pretty limited, particularly for individual chemical effects on regular healthy adults. The dose of chemicals and how long they study a group of people for definitely makes a difference as well. Defining what is a “safe” level for a product to contain, or for a person to consume, continues to be a challenge for researchers!
Some of the main chemicals that we have some control over - and may have some evidence to impact fertility - include plastics (BPA and other “alternatives” as well as phthalates) and parabens (found in many personal care and beauty products). Considering 90-95% of people will have some level of these in their blood already, this level of “control” might still be low. It is especially difficult - and likely of higher impact - for those who are exposed in high amounts at their place of work. Think, factories, salons, perfume stores, industrial sites etc.
Steps we can take to reduce our exposure might include opting for glass over plastic containers for food storage - especially when re-heating! - and choosing personal care products with no “fragrance” or parabens. It’s not always easy to distinguish between what is marketed as “natural” and what really has minimal endocrine disruptors in them.
Fragrance is a an easy start. By no means are we suggesting you do a complete overhaul of your cupboards or beauty supplies. The evidence is continuing to emerge but the best solution, from our perspective, might be to slowly replace some products over time, wear gloves and use ventilation when cleaning, opt for glass over plastic when it makes sense, and try not to stress too much over it. There are a lot of steps we can take to optimize fertility before we dive into chemical exposure.
Already have a hormonal concern or struggling with fertility? We can chat about this - and other factors - in an appointment with one of our naturopaths.