A 50-page article in the latest issue of Endocrine Reviews describes how some environmental chemicals (called endocrine-disrupting chemicals) can affect male and female reproduction, thyroid hormone function, glucose metabolism, and can cause obesity, premature breast development, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.

Many thousands of toxic synthetic chemicals--polychlorinated and polybrominated biphenyls (PCBs and PBPs), dioxins, bisphenol A, and pesticides--find their way each day into our environment. We are then exposed to these toxins through contaminated water, foods, air, and soil.

And, unfortunately, since these synthetic chemicals break down or decay very slowly, they can remain in our environment at high levels long after they've been banned. Once they enter our bodies, they are broken down slowly, sometimes into even more toxic substances, or they may not be broken down at all.

Too widespread to escape

What can we do about toxic chemicals that are so widespread that we can't entirely avoid them? We can 1) support laws and policies that make it strictly illegal for industry and agriculture to release dangerous substances into the environment, and (2) advocate for and give our support to the huge costs required to remove toxins already present in our drinking water and soil.

Reduce your exposure

Here are some things you can do to reduce your family's and your own personal exposure to chemical toxins:

• Limit the use of perfumes, hairsprays, lotions, and other cosmetics.
• Beware of pesticides in gardens and lawns.
• Restrict ingestion of processed foods.
• Avoid farm-raised salmon.
• Breastfeed the baby whenever possible.
• Familiarize yourself with the Environmental Working Group's Web site, a comprehensive and reputable source of information about all things toxic, and how to protect against them.

You might also wish to take further measures:

• Drink and cook with filtered tap water.
• Choose only organic foods.

I'm not overly enthusiastic about these 2 latter points. In some locations, testing may show that tap water does not need to be filtered--and, conversely, some bottled waters may in fact be little better than tap water. (Since bottled water comes in ecologically disastrous plastic bottles and might be shipped via truck across thousands of miles, you shouldn't be buying this product in the first place.) Last, some studies have shown that contamination of the soil with pesticides has become so pervasive that organically grown foods may be just as tainted as their nonorganic cousins.