After eating damp and moldy millet, scientists found that male animals turned into mothers in succession.

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Nowadays, more and more children’s puberty is ahead of their parents. What is the reason?

In addition to overnutrition, many studies now point to environmental endocrine disruptors, such as bisphenol A(BPA) in plastics, which can interfere with the endocrine system of humans and animals. But today we are going to introduce a stronger food-like hormone, which is widely found in grains, milk and other foods.

The name of this kind of hormone from food is Buddhist, but what it does is very coquettish. It is ZEN.

ZEN is a toxin synthesized by Fusarium fungi, and these fungi like grains best, so ZEN is widely distributed in moldy corn, sorghum, wheat and other grains, and is one of the most widely distributed mycotoxins in the world.

Fusarium, a common fungus that pollutes grains. Image source: wikipedia

In 2000, a report by the Joint FAO-WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) named Safety Evaluation of Certain Food Additives and Containant pointed out that 30-40% of the world’s grain was polluted by ZEN, and the pollution situation in developing countries was more serious than that in developed countries.

Many studies have detected high concentrations of ZEN in local grains. Regina Schoental, a pathologist at the University of London, pointed out that in the wet harvest season, the ZEN content of barley and corn in the barn can exceed 100,000 ppb (100,000 parts per billion), which is 1,000 times higher than the upper limit of ZEN content of cereals set by the European Union for direct human consumption.

So, what impact will ZEN have on animals?

ZEN is similar to the animal estrogen estradiol in structure, so it is also called F-2 estrous toxin. Yes, you are right. ZEN’s effect means literally.

The estrogenic effect of ZEN was first discovered by American scientists in 1926. Many people know that soy products also contain phytoestrogens, but ZEN is much more powerful than them. At that time, after eating corn contaminated by ZEN because of moisture, pigs became sick-their reproductive organs and behaviors were abnormal.

What anomaly?

Because the function of ZEN is similar to estrogen, the bad things it does on livestock include but are not limited to: estrus cycle disorder, premature estrus, abortion and stillbirth, false pregnancy infertility, low pregnancy rate and so on. Animal studies have found that most animals will be adversely affected by ZEN, such as pigs, cows, sheep and rabbits.

For example, after eating the feed contaminated by ZEN, the newly weaned sow will have estrus symptoms, such as redness and swelling of the hindquarters.

After the boar ingests ZEN, it will also become feminized, such as the chest becomes bigger, the balls shrink, the number of sperm decreases, and abnormal sperm is produced. ZEN has a similar effect on cattle and sheep. If the bull before puberty is injected with 36 mg of ZEN, the circumference of the balls will become smaller, the genitals will degenerate and the semen quality will become worse.

Even more frightening is that only a low dose of ZEN (as low as 1ppm) can cause damage to the reproductive system of pigs.

Because of the losses caused by ZEN to animal husbandry, ZEN is often called the second invisible killer in pig industry after aflatoxin.

So, will human beings be influenced by ZEN?

ZEN can be quickly absorbed by the body through oral administration or even through the skin. After entering the human body, it likes to stick to tissues affected by estrogen, such as uterus and leydig cells of testis.

For children who have not yet entered puberty, because their natural estrogen level is very low, they are easily influenced by estrogen in the environment, thus being induced into precocious puberty and making their breasts develop rapidly.

In November, 1977, a school in Milan, Italy, showed that the breasts of girls and boys became bigger. Researchers at the University of Milan then studied more than 200 boys aged 3-14 and more than 100 girls aged 3-7. In 1979, they published this research in The Lancet.

These researchers found that the breasts of children of all ages in this school are bigger than their peers in other schools, regardless of gender, and this phenomenon appeared in children aged 3-5.

These researchers believe that the reason why the students’ breasts are getting bigger in this school is that the grain and meat in the canteen of this school are polluted by estrogen.

Cereals can also understand, what is the problem of meat being contaminated by estrogen?

It turned out that shortly after the estrogen-like effect of ZEN was discovered, scientists found that low-dose ZEN was helpful to promote sexual maturity and gain meat in livestock. Therefore, ZEN and its derivatives have been sold as fattening agents for livestock for a long time. At that time, animal husbandry in many countries, including Italy, fed these synthetic growth promoters to livestock.

Zearalanol (trade name Ralgro), a derivative of ZEN, is now used to promote livestock fattening.

From 1978 to 1984, a large-scale precocious puberty incident occurred in Puerto Rico, which was attributed by many studies to the residue of ZEN or its derivative α‐ZAL (livestock is strong) in dairy products and meat products.

However, a study published in The Journal of Pediatrics in 2008 directly pointed the high incidence of precocious puberty in girls in northwest Italy to ZEN through blood tests.

Let’s look at the situation in our country. In 2012, researchers from Anhui Medical University analyzed the ZEN content in the blood of 78 children diagnosed with precocious puberty in 2009-2010, and found that the ZEN level in these China children was significantly higher than that of their peers without precocious puberty.

As more and more evidence supports the influence of ZEN on children and human reproduction, the World Health Organization recommends that the maximum tolerable daily intake of ZEN is 0.5 micrograms, while the EU’s recommendation is 0.25 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day.

Although human beings are beginning to realize the harm of ZEN, it does not mean that we have an effective way to remove it. Another danger of ZEN is that it is a very stable substance, even at the temperature of 150 degrees Celsius, ZEN will not decompose. In other words, ordinary families can’t remove ZEN from food by cooking.

However, the traditional physical and chemical methods can not remove ZEN without destroying the nutritional components of grain, so ZEN detoxification of grain has become an agricultural technical problem.

The existing detoxification methods include enzymatic mildew remover, montmorillonite adsorption and so on, but these are only laboratory studies and have not been applied on a large scale. In daily life, the methods of removing ZEN are not beautiful, such as lime water soaking and chlorination.

Because of the reproductive toxicity of ZEN to human beings and livestock and the difficulty of detoxification, the European Union banned the use of ZEN as an animal feed additive in 1988. In 2010, our country also listed the derivative of ZEN, α-ZAL, as a non-edible substance (but it can be used as a feed additive). China’s national standard (GB 13078.2-2006) also stipulates the maximum limit of ZEN in feed.

So how can ordinary consumers reduce the harm of ZEN?

The advice of the World Health Organization is: buy fresh grains as much as possible, store them in a dry and cool place, discard the damp and moldy parts in time, and don’t store them for too long without eating.

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Original title: "After eating damp and moldy millet, scientists found that male animals have become mothers."

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