Remember those pesky endocrine disruptors hiding in the average bottle of shampoo as well as many other consumer products that can upset the timing of puberty for young girls and create opportunities for many more health problems down the road?

A study of some 2,300 new moms in Finland and Norway found patients who took more than one over-the-counter (OTC) pain drug (ibuprofen, aspirin or acetaminophen) simultaneously during their pregnancy were seven times more likely to have sons with cryptorchidism (undescended testicles), a condition that can cause infertility or testicular cancer later on in their lives, compared to women who took no drug.

Even worse, the risk for cryptorchidism when Moms took more than one OTC pain drug during the second trimester exploded by a factor of 16. Even taking one kind of OTC painkiller is problematic for future moms and their boys during the second trimester, as aspirin and ibuprofen quadrupled the risk.

What does this have to do with "conventional" endocrine disruptors? The harmful effects of OTC analgesics on moms was mirrored by similar results on rats, specifically, when compared to those exposed to comparable doses of other endocrine disruptors like phthalates. In fact, researchers believe the health risks for boys whose future moms take OTC painkillers is markedly higher than those for other endocrine disruptors.

The lead researcher summed up these scary risks very succinctly: A single (acetamenophen) tablet (500 mg) contains more endocrine disruptor potency than the combined exposure to the 10 most prevalent of the currently known environmental endocrine disruptors during the whole pregnancy. In fact, a single tablet will, for most women, be at least a doubling of the exposure to the known endocrine disruptors during the pregnancy and that dose comes on a single day, not spread out over nine months as with the environmental endocrine disruptors.

Human Reproduction November 8, 2010

ScienceDaily November 8, 2010

Yahoo News November 8, 2010