EARLY PERIODS IN OUR GIRLS AND XENO WHAT?

Being the father of three girls 14 years of age and under it has been fascinating to observe the process they are undertaking transitioning from girls to women. This transition by anyone's measurement is going to be a challenge with lots of heartache, emotional pitfalls, personal growth and development as they strive to learn who they are, their unique gifts and what they want to contribute to our world. This should NOT be complicated with the onset of menses before its time.

Unfortunately we have heard of many of their friends and classmates who have gone into puberty between 8 and 12 years of age and this is simply not normal development. It would have been unheard of for a girl to enter puberty at ages 8-10 years of age not that many years ago. Now this has become far too common place and girls are becoming women at tender ages where emotionally they will have difficulty in handling this. Why is this occurring and are their health consequences? 

Certainly I do not have all the answers, but science is increasingly pointing the finger towards the xenoestrogens. A xenoestrogen is simply any chemical or compound that mimics the effect of estrogen. In other words it is NOT estrogen but your body is tricked into thinking it is.

When estrogen (real or the mimicking sort) becomes dominant over progesterone we develop all kinds of problems that can range from anxiety, cancer, allergy, depression, fatigue, foggy thinking, fibroids, headaches, PMS, mood swings, insomnia, infertility, low blood sugar, thyroid problems to early menstruation to mention but a few.

So what are these xenoestrogens and are they so common that we should all be concerned? The xenoestrogens fall into the following categories and you will see that they are SO common that we should most definitely at least be aware of what is going on and minimise our exposure. The xenoestrogens consist of

1. Pesticides

2. Metals

3. Petroleum products

4. Plastics

5. Hormones we take and present in food

I can almost hear the gears ticking over in your head at the moment thinking "if that is the case how would I know if I have a problem"? Family history is one way and symptoms can be another. A much more objective way though is to measure the level of copper in the tissues, not blood.

Copper is linked to the 28 day menstrual cycle and if estrogen (real or the mimicking sort) is high then the body is forced to retain copper. Month after month this will occur which then gives us an objective measurement to assess for the possibility of these chemicals.

The next issue to address though is the effects of the high copper on the body. Copper in excess is very damaging to the body and is worthy of an entirely different article but suffice to say it can contribute to any number of symptoms and it is worth reading about this topic further on my website.  Copper Toxicity

We can assess copper levels through the use of a hair tissue mineral analysis and it is this test I would most recommend when looking at copper to help determine xenoestrogen exposure. It is no fluke in my opinion that over the last 30 years the levels of copper have been rising in people. In my opinion we owe it to our female children (and male) to ensure they are getting the healthiest start possible and this is not possible if copper is a growing issue.  Getting Started

On a personal note to help illustrate this issue, when my children were assessed they all showed levels of copper that were 4-5 times higher than the ideal. With proper diet, lifestyle and the correct supplements to encourage the body to heal and eliminate the copper and xenoestrogens they have improved tremendously and normalised their copper levels. Females are more susceptible to this issue than boys due to having more estrogen in their growing and developing bodies and we need to ensure they are allowed to develop as nature has intended.