[Cross posted to LewisPerdue.Com and WineIndustryInsight.Com and for good reason …. read on]
My current Twitter followers know me for my book writing Lewis Perdue.com (@lewisperdue) or because I’m the editor/publisher of Wine Industry Insight (@Vinoindustry).
I’ve been meaning to let followers know about the @lewisperdue handle, but I’ve been lazy, partly because people in the wine business like books. And book people like wine.
Those of you who know me personally realize that I have a varied background
Now, I am involved in a project that’s very different from those two: Stealth Syndromes. which is designed to help people understand and reduce their exposure to (and risks from) hormone disrupting chemicals.
WHAT IS A “STEALTH EPIDEMIC?”
The phrase “Stealth Syndromes” because these chemicals don’t poison you directly. Instead, they covertly work to disrupt your metabolism and other bodily functions in ways that appear as other diseases entirely. This is analogous to the HIV virus which, at first, appeared to be a collection of several other, entirely different, and already-known diseases.
More formally known as Endocrine Disrupting Compounds (EDCs), these chemicals can disrupt the functioning of natural hormones, most frequently by imitating the sex hormone, estrogen.
The science of EDCs is a relatively new one and controversial but a substantial body of published, peer-reviewed scientific studies indicates that hormone disruptors can affect your body’s cellular processes in ways that are identical to those observed in cancer, infertility, developmental defects, Alzheimer’s Disease, type 2 diabetes and more.
Because it is a recent and developing field, Endocrine Disruptor research is controversial because the chemicals involved are present in very small concentrations comparable to those of your body’s natural hormones: parts per billion or trillion.
WHY IS IT CONTROVERSIAL?
The EDC field is especially controversial among older scientists who have not kept up with modern advances in molecular biology and genetics.In fact, when these older scientists were at their prime, it was impossible or difficult to measure concentrations so low with much accuracy. For that reason, any concentrations so small were assumed to be harmless.
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But with advancements in measurement technology and an up-to-date understanding of how impossibly small concentrations of hormones and EDCs can affect cell functioning, those effects are now being discovered and quantified.
Older scientists have aged with the “common sense” paradigm that tiny concentrations are healthy. This was the same reaction that greeted the discovery that invisible “thingies” could cause disease. The “thingies,” of course, turned out to be bacteria and viruses … and most recently prions.
Just as with centuries past when important discoveries were dismissed by the old establishment scientists who believed in the old paradigms, the same thing is happening today with hormone disruptors.
See: Links & Associations Don’t Count for an historical perspective on this.
WHY DID I GET INVOLVED?
I got involved with this whole new field in 2012, when I discovered that thousands of acres of California’s finest vineyards are drip-irrigated with highly treated, recycled sewage water.
That discovery led me to dig deeper into compounds that are biologically active in nano and pico concentrations — potentially Endocrine Disrupting Compounds and other chemicals of emerging concern.
This totally re-invigorated my molecular biology and organic chemistry enthusiasms, and led me to found this blog and initiate the online partnership with biologist Becca Yeamans.
It helped that I’ve been a scientist/geek most of my life.
AND … THE TWITTER SCHISM CRISIS?
Of course, that means a new Twitter handle — @stealthepidemic.
Before Stealth Syndromes, I had intended to start trying to separate followers into my wine and authoring personalities. I procrastinated.
So, now I am starting the process of letting followers know that I’m going to start separating the multiple identities among multiple Twitter handles.
HERE’S WHAT I AM GOING TO TRY
Right now, @Vinoindustry has the largest number of followers. @LewisPerdue is second.
Both of those are a mixture of wine and book followers.
In the beginning, I will continue to post both wine & book tweets as @Vinoindustry.
I am going to Tweet the handle changes on both sites to inform followers that in the future, book posts will be found at @LewisPerdue and wine at @Vinoindustry.
When the cross posts stop, people who want both will need to follow both.
Because Stealth Syndromes is both science — and will eventually be a book and sometimes involve wine — I will begin cross-posting on @StealthEpidemic and @Vinoindustry then gradually separate the two.
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