A new study found that endocrine disruptors cause mice to grow obese and suffer liver disease through at least three generations.
This confirms the 2005 NIEHS Study where DES appears to permanently disrupt the hormonal mechanisms regulating body weight in mice – (see Elizabeth Grossman’s “Chemicals May Play Role in Rise in Obesity“).
The common thread is that the most important time for exposure appears to be in utero and in childhood. Should doctors do more to warn pregnant women about certain chemicals?
Read Warnings From a Flabby Mouse, by Nicholas D. Kristof
The NewYorkTimes, January 2013
Sources:
- Transgenerational Inheritance of Increased Fat Depot Size, Stem Cell Reprogramming, and Hepatic Steatosis Elicited by Prenatal Exposure to the Obesogen Tributyltin in Mice,
EHP, 1205701, January 2013. - Developmental exposure to estrogenic compounds and obesity,
NIEHS Symposium Proceedings, 10.1002/bdra.20147, June 2005.
DES and Obesity
- Developmental Exposure to Endocrine Disruptors and the Obesity Epidemic – 2007
- Developmental exposure to estrogenic compounds and obesity – 2005
- Environmental Estrogens and Obesity: the Developmental Exposed DES Animal Model – 2009
- Perinatal exposure to environmental estrogens and the development of obesity – 2007
- Prenatal diethylstilbestrol exposure and risk of obesity in adult women – 2015