Hopefully I can make your reading time worthwhile!I was talking with Mark (my husband) this morning – talking about what I was reading at the time (Healing the Planet: One Patient at a Time – by Dr. Jozef J. Krop, an Environmental Doctor – who knew there was such a thing?). I don’t think that Mark was fully awake – but he suggested that I should blog about what I’m reading. First to keep track of my journey through Holistic Nutrition school (I’ve already done one year, chugging along on the second), so that I can remember who I’ve met along the way and how they’ve influenced me. Second to maybe share a little of the knowledge that I’m learning. And third because I think he’s getting tired of listening every morning before he even gets his coffee into him.I can be a little overzealous when I find something that shocks me, frightens me, or just interests me. And I have to admit that Dr. Krop’s book has done all of the three. Especially the information on Hormone Disrupting Chemicals (see pages 270-291). HDCs are such chemicals as plastics, pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals and other man-made toxins. They have a profound effect on our endocrine, nervous and immune systems – they work as hormone disruptors.So why are these HDCs important – and how do they affect us? 1. They affect the endocrine system by mimicking the actions of hormones. On embryos they can affect anatomical changes especially on the urinary and genital organs. 2. Not only can they mimic the actions (xenoestrogens), they can also block the receptors from the normal action of the hormones. 3. What’s amazing to me, is that these HDCs can work in only minute amounts in the body – amounts that the Toxic Nation report show are in our bodies at birth, passed on through our mothers blood and milk thereby affecting changes in 2nd and 3rd generations.See what I mean? A little overzealous? No wonder Mark finds waking up to this information a little challenging! Me – I just want to find ways that I can make changes in this family’s life so that we aren’t adding to the toxic load of the planet.I’m hoping we can walk this path together – REB