the human diet contains industrial - derived , endocrine - active chemicals and higher levels of naturally occurring compounds that modulate multiple endocrine pathways . hazard and risk assessment of these mixtures is complicated by noadditive interactions between different endocrine - mediated responses . 
 this study focused on estrogenic chemicals in the diet and compared the relative potencies or estrogen equivalents ( eqs ) of the daily consumption of xenoestrogenic organochlorine pesticides in food ( 2.44 micrograms / day ) with the eqs in a single 200-ml glass of red cabernet wine . 
 the reconstituted organochlorine mixture contained 1,1,1-trichloro-2-(p - chlorophenyl)-2-(o - chlorophenyl)ethane , 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p - chlorophenyl)ethane , 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p - chlorophenyl)ethylene , endosulfan-1 , endosulfan-2 , p , p'-methoxychlor , and toxaphene ; the relative proportion of each chemical in the mixture resembled the composition reported in a recent u.s . 
 food and drug administration market basket survey . 
 the following battery of in vitro 17 beta - estradiol ( e2)-responsive bioassays were utilized in this study : competitive binding to mouse uterine estrogen receptor ( er ) ; proliferation in t47d human breast cancer cells ; luciferase ( luc ) induction in human hepg2 cells transiently cotransfected with c3-luc and the human er , rat er - alpha , or rat er - beta ; induction of chloramphenicol acetyltransferase ( cat ) activity in mcf-7 human breast cancer cells transfected with e2-responsive cathepsin d - cat or creatine kinase b - cat plasmids . 
 for these seven in vitro assays , the calculated eqs in extracts from 200 ml of red cabernet wine varied from 0.15 to 3.68 micrograms / day . 
 in contrast , eqs for consumption of organochlorine pesticides ( 2.44 micrograms / day ) varied from nondetectable to 1.24 ng / day . based on results of the in vitro bioassays , organochlorine pesticides in food 
 contribute minimally to dietary eq intake.imagesfigure 3