Reptiles are very sensitive to environmental conditions; I don’t think one can draw conclusions about human reproductive problems by observing reproductive problems in alligators. (Assuming such problems even exist; what was cited in the movie sounds an awful lot like just some more anecdotes, only anecdotes outside of the human species.)

I read an article in the popular press not too long ago about some research that tied maternal nutrition to gender. Heavier women were more likely to have a 50/50 distribution among their children, while lighter women were more likely to have more girls than boys. The researchers speculated that being underfed created an environment in the womb which was more harmful to male embryos, causing more of them to miscarry or even fail to implant altogether. More girls (which would imply polygyny) might be a better reproductive strategy in lean times, they speculated. If all of this speculation were true, the current slight decline in male birth rates could be due to a cultural focus on trim waistlines, which in turn leads to more women who happen to be on a diet when they get pregnant.

It seemed pretty speculative, but interesting. Not as scary as “wooo, chemicals, men are endangered”, though.

I think the genital abnormalities are found postmortem.

You mean laughing gas?? It’s great stuff. I’ve had it at my dentist’s, before. Like, 25 years ago. I’m doing fine.

Chiropractors blame all disease on subluxations
Acupuncturists blame all disease on blocked qi
Naturopaths blame all disease on undefined toxins.
You blame all disease on NO.
You are keeping fairly bogus company.

The CBC is a venerable Canadian institution, and has a reputation of doing very good news coverage, documentaries and investigative TV……in the past. (A classic CBC show from the 1960’s, “This Hour Has Seven Days” was the inspiration for “60 Minutes”, and all the other newsmagazine shows that followed)

It is heavily supported by government grants, something like PBS in the USA, but successive governments…both left and right leaning, have been chipping away at their funding for years. They are now trying to survive in a media free-market, and I guess that means appealing to the lowest common denominator, shoddy research, and pseudo-science, typical of what appears on The Discovery Channel

It’s kind of sad to see them sink to the level of tabloid TV.

I strongly suspect that the increase of androgens when NO is reduced is part of the normal feedback regulation of NO/NOx status. The classic hyperandrogenic symptom is hirsutism, increased growth of hair, and in particular a “male-pattern” hair growth (and male pattern baldness too). This increased hair growth will expand the niche the bacteria I am studying live in, where they convert the ammonia in sweat into NO and nitrite, some of which is absorbed. Hair in humans serves to keep the niche for these bacteria warm and moist, facilitating their growth on skin that is thin and well vascularized (scalp), near lymph nodes (under arms) or near orifices that need antibacterial NO/NOx (pubic hair).

A major disorder characterized by endocrine disruption is polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is characterized by high levels of androgens, hirsutism and also other effects of low NO (metabolic syndrome, obesity, vascular disorders).

A common method for inducing hyperandrogenic effects in farm animals is putting antibiotics in animal feed. The mechanism for this endocrine disruption remains unknown, but it does occur using antibiotics that are not absorbed, and is less effective when animals are raised under conditions of high cleanliness. My hypothesis is that the antibiotics reduce the growth of the bacteria I am working with, and this shifts the animals’ NO/NOx setpoint to a more androgenic point resulting in animals growing bigger, maturing sooner and increasing the efficiency of conversion of feed to biomass. These are exactly the same changes that have been observed in humans following the widespread adoption of modern bathing practices. In 1850 the average age of menarche was almost 17; now it is ~12.5.

I think endocrine disruption from perturbations of NO/NOx physiology is more plausible than from xenobiotic chemicals. The endocrine disrupting chemicals usually have binding coefficients orders of magnitude below the binding coefficients of endogenous receptor substrates which are present at orders of magnitude higher levels than xenobiotics. Endogenous hormones have variable levels in the different tissue compartments where they are synthesized and utilized. The physiology is very complex because there are multiple feedback control mechanisms, many of which are very poorly characterized.

Some of the compounds being looked at for endocrine disruption potential also have effects on the bacteria I am working with. For example atrazine does inhibit nitrification, but the data is quite sparse. Even modest inhibition can cause adverse effects in whole organisms because the nitrifiers use NO as a quorums sensing compound and a slight inhibition causes the NO level to go down, which can trigger depopulation of the normal nitrifying bacteria biofilm. I think this is the mechanism for lobster shell disease.

Hopefully most viewers will notice that young boys aren’t the same as alligators.