Trying to deprive your breast cancer from estrogen may not be so easy after al
 

ESTROGEN FROM DAIRY FARMS MAY BE GETTING INTO OUR GROUND WATER, CROPS, ETC


University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Team determines how estrogens to persist in dairy wastewater





IMAGE: Illinois Sustainable Technology Center senior research scientist Wei Zheng and his colleagues found that estrogenic compounds in dairy waste biodegrade very slowly in the absence of oxygen.




CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Wastewater from large dairy farms contains significant concentrations of estrogenic hormones that can persist for months or even years, researchers report in a new study. In the absence of oxygen, the estrogens rapidly convert from one form to another; this stalls their biodegradation and complicates efforts to detect them, the researchers found.

The study, led by scientists at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, is the first to document the unusual behavior of estrogens in wastewater lagoons. The study appears in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.





IMAGE: Estrogens in dairy wastewater degrade quickly when exposed to the air, but persist in wastewater, the researchers found.




Just as new mothers undergo hormonal changes that enable them to breastfeed, lactating cows generate estrogenic hormones that are excreted in urine and feces, said ISTC senior research scientist Wei Zheng, who led the study. In large "confined animal feeding operations" (CAFOs) the hormones end up in wastewater. Farmers often store the wastewater in lagoons and may use it to fertilize crops.

Federal laws regulate the flow of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous from CAFOs to prevent excess nutrients from polluting rivers, streams, lakes or groundwater. Environmental officials assume that such regulations also protect groundwater and surface waters from contamination with animal hormones and veterinary pharmaceuticals, but this has not been proven.

Hormone concentrations in livestock wastes are 100 to 1,000 times higher than those emitted from plants that treat human sewage, and large dairy farms are a primary source of estrogens in the environment, Zheng said. Recent studies have detected estrogenic hormones in soil and surrounding watersheds after dairy wastewater was sprayed on the land as fertilizer.





IMAGE: Wastewater from large dairies is a major source of estrogenic compounds in the environment.



"These estrogens are present at levels that can affect the (reproductive functions of) aquatic animals," Zheng said. Even low levels of estrogens can "feminize" animals that spend their lives in the water, causing male fish, for example, to have low sperm counts or to develop female characteristics (such as producing eggs), undermining their ability to reproduce.

Hormones that end up in surface or groundwater could contaminate sources of drinking water for humans, Zheng said. "The estrogens may also be taken up by plants – a potential new route into the food chain," he said. When exposed to the air, estrogenic hormones in animal waste tend to break down into harmless byproducts. But the hormones persist in anoxic conditions.

While conducting the new study on dairy waste lagoon water in the lab, the researchers were surprised at first to see levels of three primary estrogens (17 alpha-estradiol, 17 beta-estradiol and estrone) fall and then rise again in their samples. Further analysis revealed that the estradiols were being converted to estrone, undergoing the normal first step of biodegradation. But then the process reversed itself: Estrone was reverting to the alpha- and beta-estradiols.

"We call this a reverse transformation," Zheng said. "It inhibits further degradation. Now we have a better idea of why (the estrogens) can persist in the environment."

The degradation rates of the three hormones in the wastewater solution were temperature-dependent, and very slow. After 52 days at 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) – an ideal temperature for hormone degradation, Zheng said – less than 30 percent of the hormones in the solution had broken down.

The fluctuating levels of estrone and estradiols may lead to detection errors, Zheng said, giving the impression that the total estrogen load of wastewater is decreasing when it is not.

"We need to develop a strategy to prevent these hormones from building up in the environment," he said.

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Re: Trying to deprive your breast cancer from estrogen may not be so easy after al
 

Lovely. So much for fresh, country living.

Re: Trying to deprive your breast cancer from estrogen may not be so easy after al
 

So glad that we have a reverse osmosis water purification system in our house to clean our water.

I wonder if they have tried to grow human cell lines in vitro by supplementing them with these estrogen derivatives. I also wonder if these or other hormones that we consume actually survive the digestion process intact and thereby enter our bloodstream. It seams unlikely to me that bovine estrogen would be both exempt from the toxic digestive enzymes AND significantly activate human estrogen receptors. Any thoughts?

Re: Trying to deprive your breast cancer from estrogen may not be so easy after al
 

[Some hope?]

J Hazard Mater. 2012 May 15. [Epub ahead of print]
De-conjugation behavior of conjugated estrogens in the raw sewage, activated sludge and river water.

Kumar V, Johnson AC, Nakada N, Yamashita N, Tanaka H.
Source

Research Center for Environmental Quality Management, Kyoto University, 1-2 Yumihama, Otsu, Shiga 520-0811, Japan.

Abstract

The fate and behavior of estrone-3-sulfate (E1-3S), estradiol-3-sulfate (E2-3S), estrone-3-glucuronide (E1-3G) and estradiol-3-glucuronide (E2-3G) were studied in raw sewage, activated sludge and river water using microcosms. The glucuronide conjugates had a half-life of 0.4h in raw sewage, yielding 40-60% of their free estrogens.

Field observations at three activated sludge processes suggested complete transformation of the glucuronide conjugates in the sewer. In river water glucuronide conjugates half-lives extended to over 2d yielding 60-100% of their free parent estrogens. Transformation of the sulfate conjugates in raw sewage and river water was slow with little formation of the parent estrogens. Sulfate conjugates could readily be detected in sewage influent in the field studies. In activated sludge the sulfate conjugates had half-lives of 0.2h with the transient formation of 10-55% of the free parent estrogens.

Field studies indicated transformation of sulfate conjugates across the sewage treatment, although a proportion escaped into the effluent. These results broadly support the view that glucuronide conjugates will be entirely transformed within the sewer largely to their parent estrogens.

The sulfate conjugates may persist in raw sewage and river water but are transformable in activated sludge and, in the case of E2-3S, reform a high proportion of the parent estrogen.
Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Re: Trying to deprive your breast cancer from estrogen may not be so easy after al
 

Seems like there is a need for personal estrogen detectors..maybe a pill you drop into liquids and see if it changes color. (I have dibs on the patent;)