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Prenatal exposure to toxin linked to obesity
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Michigan researchers have reported that prenatal exposure to dichlorodiphenyl-dichloroethylene, an insecticide used until the 1970s, could be a factor in obesity in some women.
Two hundred fifty-nine women from the Michigan fisheater cohort were included in the study, as well as their 213 daughters aged 20 to 50 years. The report was published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
The researchers analyzed the effects of exposure to dichlorodiphenyl-dichloroethylene (DDE) and PCBs on BMI, height and weight.
They reported that the “weight and BMI of adult offspring were statistically significantly associated with the extrapolated prenatal DDE levels of their mothers.” The higher the maternal DDE levels, the greater the impact on the daughters’ BMI level in adulthood. Prenatal exposure to PCBS had no effect on BMI.
“What we have found for the first time is exposure to certain toxins by eating fish from polluted waters may contribute to the obesity epidemic in women,” Janet Osuch, MD, MS, professor of surgery and epidemiology at Michigan State University in East Lansing, said in a press release.
“This line of research can transform how we think about the causes of obesity and potentially help us create prenatal tests to show which offspring are at higher risks.
“These findings not only apply to the offspring of women in our cohort but to any woman who has been exposed to high levels of DDE when she was growing in her mother’s womb,” Osuch said. “Mothers with the highest DDE levels are women who have consumed a lot of fish or high-fat meats.”
Karmaus W. Occup Environ Med. 2009;66:143-149.