Phytoestrogen-low diet for endocrine disruptor studies.

Hormonally active chemicals (HACs) that are capable of inducing adverse effects on wildlife as well as human beings are featured as "endocrine disruptors". Various animal studies conducted to clarify the characteristics of HACs, including the uterotrophic assay, are sufficiently sensitive to detect the effect of 17-beta-estradiol in micrograms per kilogram of body weight or lower. In such systems, a trace amount of HACs in the dietary pellets may interfere with the test results and thus can be a serious problem for the low-dose issue, which is now a major topic in the field of endocrine disruptor research. Here, the significance of the hormonal effects of phytoestrogen components in the NIH-07 diet is confirmed and a NIH-07-based open formula "phytoestrogen-low diet" (PLD) is proposed, which effectively reduces uterine weight as well as the uterine luminal epithelial labeling index in ovariectomized rats.