At January’s Norwex® Leadership Conference, I spoke about the risks chemicals pose to our health and the environment. Last week, in the first of a series highlighting this presentation, we showcased the widespread hazards of DDT and PFAS. In part two, we turn our focus to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, known to affect the human hormone system.
Our company commitment to “Cleaning without Chemicals” dates back to 1994, when Founder Bjørn Nicolaisen discovered a miraculous cloth that could clean safely using only microfiber and water. The rest is Norwex history, as our Mission evolved to its current rendition: Improving quality of life by radically reducing chemicals in our homes.
In part one of this series, I referenced “Body Burden”—the total amount of harmful chemicals found in our bodies. The hazards are real. Throughout our lifetime, an estimated 1,400 carcinogens can build up in our tissues, organs, blood and urine.
The hormone system is responsible for sending vital information throughout our body and regulating most bodily functions. But both natural and man-made endocrine-disrupting chemicals have been linked with developmental, reproductive, brain, immune and other problems, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Common EDCs include:
What we know: Contact of EDCs is thought to occur through diet, air, skin and water—in other words, what we eat, drink, breathe and touch. Yet of the nearly 85,000 man-made chemicals in the world, we still know very little about their impact on human health. And consider this eye-opening number: Close to 800 chemicals are known or suspected to be capable of interfering with hormone receptors, hormone synthesis or hormone conversion.
“Chemicals in our environment and unhealthy lifestyle practices in our modern world are disrupting our hormonal balance, causing various degrees of reproductive havoc,” according to Dr. Shanna Swan, a leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologist and professor of environmental science and public health at New York City’s Icahn School of Medicine.
Research showed that between 1964 and 2018, the global fertility rate fell from 5.06 births per woman to 2.4—at least part of the blame falling on chemicals found in plastics, cosmetics and pesticides. Another study found a major difference in sperm count between rural and urban areas, thought to be associated with alachlor, a popular weed killer used in the Midwest.
What Norwex is doing: True to our Mission, you won’t find harmful, hormone-disrupting chemicals in any of our products. Instead, we use plant-based ingredients and enzymes proven to be as safe as they are effective. There’s more:
Making your home a Safe Haven creates a place where your body can rebuild, restore and rebound. Join us in our Mission to live healthier lives, now and in the future. In the comments below, let us know what you’re doing to help keep you and your family safe from exposure to harmful chemicals.
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I love the Fresh Produce Wash for what I bring home from the store. Also, I have 2 32oz water bottles that I will fill and drink throughout the day, so I am always using my Water Filtration System!
In our house, we recycle everything, we have reusable water bottles and we have reduced our paper towel usage down to barely anything. We have drastically reduced the chemicals we use in our house by strictly using Norwex.
Hey, Amy… I think one of your lines is missing the ending …. “Check out the quality of water in your area through a reliable data base like“…
Angie, thank you! We have updated the sentence to now include the link to EWG’s database found here https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/ Thanks for making us aware!