A Daily Dose

As we conclude the podcast, we reflect on the process of creating it and everything we learned along the way. Thank you for listening, and we hope you learned something new. We sure did!

Prevention is the key pillar of public health. After everything we've learned about EDCs, it can seem almost impossible to limit our exposure to them in everyday life. But several experts are here to show us that small steps can be taken to protect ourselves. The more we know about EDCs and the importance of limiting exposure, the more we can push for systemic change as well.

The future of the field of EDC research is bright, full of innovation and passion for finding solutions. Two of the young scientists leading the way in this field discuss developments to cleaning up EDCs from the environment and improving the study of risks these chemicals pose, illustrating the hope there is for things to get better. 

Females. Girls. Chicas. Sheilas. However you want to refer to them, women have made remarkable contributions to the field of EDCs. In this episode of A Daily Dose, we take a step away from the science and four special guests share with us their experiences as being women in this field of science, as well as their concerns that female-centered research is understudied.

The effects of EDCs – diseases, loss of IQ, behavioral changes – all add up. Dr. Leonardo Trasande has actually calculated that very cost, and it’s staggering. He joins us to describe just how much EDCs contribute to global health costs and where the brunt of the burden of these costs lies.

Could EDCs be a risk factor for Type II diabetes? We delve into the meaning of the term “diabetogens” in this episode featuring Dr. Angel Nadal, who has found BPA can disrupt pancreatic cell function – leading to a greater risk for developing diabetes.

The Clarity BPA study was intended to blend both academic and regulatory study designs to get a unified interpretation of the effects of endocrine disruptor BPA … whether this study was successful is up for debate. Two scientists who were directly involved with Clarity BPA, Dr. Jerry Heindel and Dr. Pat Hunt, are featured in this episode to give some insight into this infamous, controversial study.

Phthalates are a well-studied class of chemicals that have been shown to affect male reproductive health as well as brain development. But how do we know that phthalates are responsible for these effects on health? Dr. Youssef Oulhote helps us understand the epidemiological principles surrounding the association of a chemical to a particular effect. 

Who would drink a cocktail of chemicals? When you put it like that, no one. But in our environment we are exposed to a mixture of chemicals all the time; we ingest them through food and water all the same. When these chemicals mix together, they create the "cocktail effect," meaning the effect they can have on health may be different than their individual effects. Dr. Andreas Kortenkamp is pushing for a change in the way chemicals are evaluated, so that their risk to health is assessed in mixtures and not just individually.

Join us for episode two of our "podcast within a podcast," brought to you by students at Great Neck South High School on Long Island. They continue the discussion of advocacy around environmental exposures that contribute to breast cancer. 

Dive into a "podcast within a podcast" as students from Great Neck South High School on Long Island take over A Daily Dose to discuss advocacy surrounding breast cancer and women's health. 

The history of companies dumping chemicals into public water is not a short one, yet the incidence of GE depositing PCBs into the Hudson River is an especially egregious example. PCBs, like the ones that millions of New Yorkers were exposed to through this event, have the potential to impact the thyroid hormone. Dr. Tom Zoeller knows a lot about thyroid hormone's function and influence on brain development, and he joins us to discuss how chemicals like PCBs can disrupt it. 

The average human consumes about a credit card's worth of plastic each week -- what could this exposure be doing to us? Dr. Juliette Legler joins us to discuss the growing concern for health and the environment as plastic use continues to increase globally.

Can fate exist in science? The process behind Dr. Pat Hunt's discovery of the endocrine disrupting properties of BPA might make you wonder. She joins us to recount her accidental discovery of one of the most famous EDCs out there. 

It's no secret that fracking has serious consequences on the environment -- but did you know that the chemicals used in the fracking process can have effects on the function of the endocrine system as well? Dig below the surface level issues of fracking in this episode featuring Dr. Chris Kassotis and his work documenting and studying the mixture of EDCs used in fracking fluid. 

The prostate gland is a critical part of the male reproductive system. Dr. Gail Prins studies this gland, its role in men's reproductive health, and effects of EDCs on function and disease outcomes. Male reproductive health and the disruptions EDCs can cause to the function of the prostate are the focus of this episode of A Daily Dose.

Regulatory agencies and researchers have not always agreed on what it means for a chemical to be considered dangerous or not. Using the story of asbestos, we dive into the process it takes for the EPA to ban a chemical – or not. Dr. Juleen Lam joins us to give a glimpse inside the EPA’s decision-making process when it comes to banning the use of chemicals.

The pesticide DDT is like a character from a murder mystery who we thought was innocent, and was even very likable, but turned out to be the killer. DDT has proven vital for growing crops and stopping the spread of disease, but as it turns out, could have caused more harm than good. On this episode of A Daily Dose, Dr. Michele La Merrill explains one of these unintended effects: DDT exposure leads to weight gain over multiple generations. 

The first organ involved in forming human life is the placenta, and the importance of this protective barrier has been understood for hundreds of years, revered in various ways in different cultures before its scientific properties were ever understood. These properties are still not fully known to modern scientists, though Dr. Heather Patisaul and Dr. Jean-Baptiste Fini are some of those working on uncovering the mysteries of this fascinating organ. 

To name a few of the most famous races on Earth, the Kentucky Derby, Space Race, and New York City Marathon come to mind. Beyond doubt, however, the most relevant and important one in recent years was the race to make a COVID-19 vaccine. Though we have crossed the finish line, the larger goal to effectively end the pandemic contains a hurdle we didn’t see coming: exposure to environmental chemicals can dampen our immune responses to vaccines. In this episode of A Daily Dose, Dr. Phillippe Grandjean shares how his research has led him to come to this conclusion.

It’s no secret that obesity has become a problem of epic proportions in the United States. And it seems obvious why: we are eating more and exercising less. But that’s not the whole truth… On this episode of A Daily Dose, Dr. Bruce Blumberg explains how the environmental chemicals we are exposed to everyday lead us to gain weight.

EDCs can have quite the effect on the brain during development. Natural hormones are responsible for creating differences between the male and female sex in the brain as it develops. Dr. Andrea Gore discusses how her work has shown fetal exposure to endocrine disruptors, specifically PCBs, alters aspects of brain sexual differentiation in her studies using rats. 

We make a lot of assumptions about authority figures throughout our life: teachers know the answers to all of our questions, our parents actually care when we show them a trick in the swimming pool, and the landlord aims to make rent reasonable for the property. Of course, we all come to the distressing realization that none of those are true. One of those unfortunate truths is that the FDA does not successfully protect us from harmful chemicals being added to our food. In this episode of A Daily Dose, Mr. Maricel Maffini explains how loopholes and outdated legislation have led to the unregulated use of thousands of potentially harmful food additives.

Hospitals are a sanctuary we flee to for protection from the health threats of the world. But what if the place we go to heal when we are at our most vulnerable is actually providing an environment with greater risk of exposure to EDCs than outside it? On this episode of A Daily Dose, Dr. Robert Sargis walks us through medical exposures to EDCs and how doctors can protect us from them.

Did you know that fluoride, the chemical that is added to all of our drinking water, has been linked to IQ deficiencies? How did this chemical dupe us as perfectly harmless and even helpful? It turns out that misconceptions about chemical exposures are just as prevalent as EDCs themselves. Dr. Bruce Lanphear joins us to shed some light on common misunderstandings surrounding chemical exposures -- emphasizing that little things matter. 

The chemicals in our environment were disrupting our endocrine system long before we knew they were. In this episode of A Daily Dose, we travel back in time to uncover the evidence that clued scientists in on the effects of these chemicals. Dr. Pete Myers and Dr. Laura Vandenberg help us to understand the history of the field of study surrounding EDCs.

Endocrine disrupting chemicals are found across all environments, so exposure to these chemicals is basically unavoidable. Dr. Laura Vandenberg joins us to explain the broad concerns surrounding EDCs and discuss how even low exposures to EDCs have the potential to impact development and the function of the endocrine system. 

It’s no secret that we are exposed to harmful chemicals in our environment everyday. But it is a secret where those exposures truly come from, their damaging effects on our health, and how they are regulated. A Daily Dose is a show seeking to find the answers to all of those questions for one group of chemicals in particular: endocrine disrupting chemicals. Meet the students who created this podcast in this short introduction episode.