Estrogenic potential of environmental compounds

Number of xenobiotics in our environment exhibits biological activities ass ociated with female sex hormone estrogen. The both widespread occurrence of environmental chemicals with gestrogen activities and chronic exposure to xenoestrogens result in disturbance of sex differentiation, reproduction fu nction and changes of population dynamics in wildlife. Some epidemiological data suggest hypothetical linking of environmental estrogen-like compounds with decreased fertility, infertility, reproductive abnormalities and canc er diseases in people. Relatively little is known about causation of this p athology. Therefore, it is important to increase effort for better understa nding in vivo bioactivity of xenoestrogens and to focus research on cellula r and molecular targets of such compounds. The introduction to the problem of xenoestrogen contamination of the environment, a brief review of the adv erse health impact of xenoestrogens and necessity to assess chemicals for t he oestrogen activity are discussed in this article.