Abstract :
Endocrine disrupting chemical is a term for a wide range of chemicals that could affect development and/or function of endocrine system in animals. First reports about potential endocrine disrupting effects of certain chemicals in the environment were published almost twenty years ago, based on the reports about problems with sexual development/differentiation of certain wild animals living in heavily contaminated environments like certain lakes in Florida, US. Subsequent studies have shown potential endocrine disrupting effects for many different chemical substances, ranging from pesticides, plastics, pharmaceuticals and others, and currently there is no known structure/function relationship that would suggest whether certain chemical might have endocrine disrupting properties. However, almost all studies showing endocrine disrupting properties have been performed in vitro or with laboratory animals so there is no conclusive answer whether such chemicals might pose a threat for human and animal health in everyday life. Interesting, though, are observations that male reproductive health has detoriated in the last decades. There are several reports that incidence of hypospadias, cryptorchidism and testicular cancer has increased, although these reports with the exception of testicular cancer, are often disputed. Similarly, several reports suggest fall in semen quality in human males in the last several decades, although again, this reports are often disputed and since there are no large prospective studies, we do not have a conclusive answer whether there really are any adverse effects occurring with human reproductive health. If such reports are reflecting real situation and if endocrine disrupting chemicals are involved in the etiology of such problems, one would expect similar trends to be observed also in domestic animals, which are usually exposed to similar environment as humans. However, there are very few studies systematically and chronologically examining reproductive health of domestic animals. Two published studies examined bull semen quality and could not detect detoriating quality. However, bulls in breeding centers are selected for their reproductive performance and therefore do not represent a situation in the normal population.
