A $1.4 million, three year grant has be awarded to University of Michigan, in the study of outcomes on prenatal exposure to certain chemicals. The Ann Arbor school will be opening a center here in Detroit to conduct this important research
The grant has made to the School of Public Health its goal is to observe if a pregnant woman’s exposure to obesogenes adds to childhood obesity or alters the time of puberty. This study will track the outcomes of the toxins in children from birth to adolescences.
Lead researcher Karen Peterson, has stated this long term method is essential in discovering how obesogens affect risk for obesity in children, diabetes among other chronic disease later on in their life.
Obesity is a growing problem in the United States today. Children and teens are at least three times more likely to become obese by the age of thirty.
Within the last few decades diet and exercise seemed to hold the blame of this problem. However, what if the problem was not just the calories in and out. Numerous research has told us they are now finding effects on the metabolic function that could lead to weight gain is from toxic chemicals.
There are numerous synthetic chemicals which are acknowledge to impact the hormonal system. Now research is discovering that these effects can lead to weight gain, insulin resistance, heart disease and America’s ever growing problem of obesity.
Chemicals which are in the food, home and work environments along with products we purchase every day have been associated to the effects on metabolism.
A few causing chemicals
Phthalates:
Substances use in plastic and fragrance carriers which are found in a lot of products, building materials which include PVC and vinyl products like flooring and shower curtains along with cleaners and personal care products.
Phthalates have the ability to hinder testosterone production in animal studies. Low testosterone levels have been strongly linked to obesity and metabolic syndrome in males.
When analyzed levels of these chemicals in Americans it was found that males have a higher exposure to certain phthalates along with greater body mass index, waist size and insulin resistance. All of those which are measures of obesity and metabolic syndrome.
Laboratory studies have proven that phthalates directly affect key regulators of fat metabolism.
Bisphenol A (BPA
This is the building block of polycarbonate plastic and a component in food can linings. It is estrogenic and affects thyroid function. Research has advocated exposure could cause weight gain.
Some research has shown that especially in female animals, exposure from BPA could possibly produce a heavier weight gain and immensely increase fat deposits. The animals exposed to BPA had consumed the same food amount as the non-exposed animals but gained more weight.
When analyzing BPA in Americans they had an associated higher exposure to the more likelihood of diabetes and heart disease.
Information gathered by the CDC has shown greater than 2000 American adults have a very strong association between exposure to these chemicals and diabetes. In those Americans with the highest exposure had shown a rate of 37 more times greater to develop diabetes as opposed to those with lower rate exposure.
In October of this year it was found that mothers who had high rates of the chemical DDE in their blood, their babies were more likely to grow very quick during the first six months and have a high body mass index by the time the reached the age of fourteen years.
Prenatal exposure has promoted the EPA to re-examine guidelines.
Obesegen chemical
The studying of this chemical can take years and end up generating a thousand page risk assessment document called IRIS.
Bruce Blumberg, a developmental biologist at the University of California, Irvine, has been noted to have some compelling evidence in this chemical.
His research has suggested that a child exposed to tin during the earliest part of life will endure life with a predisposition to becoming fat. At a major step when a cell is specialized as either bone or fat cell, once exposure of tin during pregnancy happens, the cells have double the chance of turning into fat cells.
The chemical is obesegen. They are called this becomes they promote obesity. Sources:
Detroit News
Safer Chemicals
Science Daily
EE News
