Tag: DES GrandSons

Can a Pregnancy Drug Trigger ADHD Generations Later ? You Bet !

Aattention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Much More Common in Grandchildren of Women Who Were Prescribed the DES Drug in Pregnancy

A cohort study – Association of Exposure to Diethylstilbestrol During Pregnancy With Multigenerational Neurodevelopmental Deficits – published May 21, 2018, shows that prenatal diethylstilbestrol exposure may lead to neurodevelopmental disorders across several generations : DES grandchildren are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD (36% to 63%).

The audio summary above reviews the cohort study that uses Nurses’ Health Study data to investigate associations between diethylstilbestrol (DES) use in pregnancy and self-reported development of ADHD in grandchildren.

Press Releases

More DES DiEthylStilbestrol Resources

Much Higher Risk of ADHD in DES GrandChildren

Association of Exposure to Diethylstilbestrol During Pregnancy With Multigenerational Neurodevelopmental Deficits

New research published today, May 21, 2018, shows that prenatal diethylstilbestrol exposure may lead to neurodevelopmental disorders across several generations : DES grandchildren are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD (36% to 63%).

Key Points

Question
Is exposure to diethylstilbestrol during pregnancy associated with adverse multigenerational neurodevelopmental outcomes?

Findings
A cohort study of 47 450 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II found significantly elevated odds for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in the grandchildren (third generation) of users of diethylstilbestrol, a potent endocrine disruptor.

Meaning
Exposure to endocrine disruptors during pregnancy may be associated with multigenerational neurodevelopmental deficits.

Abstract

Importance
Animal evidence suggests that endocrine disruptors affect germline cells and neurodevelopment. However, to date, the third-generation neurodevelopmental outcomes in humans have not been examined.

Objective
To explore the potential consequences of exposure to diethylstilbestrol or DES across generations—specifically, third-generation neurodevelopment.

Design, Setting, and Participants
This cohort study uses self-reported health information, such as exposure to diethylstilbestrol during pregnancy and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis, from 47 540 participants enrolled in the ongoing Nurses’ Health Study II. The 3 generations analyzed in this study were the participants (F1 generation), their mothers (F0 generation), and their live-born children (F2 generation).

Main Outcomes and Measures
Participant- and mother-reported exposure to diethylstilbestrol during pregnancy and physician-diagnosed child ADHD.

Results
The total number of women included in this study was 47 540. Of the 47 540 F0 mothers, 861 (1.8%) used diethylstilbestrol and 46 679 (98.2%) did not while pregnant with the F1 participants. Use of diethylstylbestrol by F0 mothers was associated with an increased risk of ADHD among the F2 generation: 7.7% vs 5.2%, adjusted odds ratio (OR), 1.36 (95% CI, 1.10-1.67) and an OR of 1.63 (95% CI, 1.18-2.25) if diethylstilbestrol was taken during the first trimester of pregnancy. No effect modification was observed by the F2 children’s sex.

Conclusions and Relevance
This study provides evidence that diethylstilbestrol exposure is associated with multigenerational neurodevelopmental deficits. The doses and potency level of environmental endocrine disruptors to which humans are exposed are lower than those of diethylstilbestrol, but the prevalence of such exposure and the possibility of cumulative action are potentially high and thus warrant consideration.

DES DiEthylStilbestrol Resources

Fetal Origin of Adult Disease

Abstract from “Environmental Exposures and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes: A Review of the Science”

During the last two decades, chronic disease has replaced infectious disease as the major focus of public health concern. The top 4 leading causes of death in the United States are chronic diseases. There remains much unknown about the etiology of many chronic conditions, which in most cases is probably multifactorial. Studies from the 1990s found that effects on the fetal environment, such as through poor or inadequate nutrition, can result in an increased risk of adult onset of chronic conditions, such as coronary heart disease. This has been called the fetal origins hypothesis (also known as the Barker theory), which proposes that external influences on the fetal environment can increase the risk of later disease in adulthood.

Diethylstilbestrol (DES)—a synthetic estrogen given to US women between 1938 and 1971 to prevent pregnancy complications illustrates the fetal origins of later in life disease. In utero DES exposure left mature female offspring at increased risk of clear cell adenocarcinoma of the vagina and cervix, breast cancer, structural reproductive tract anomalies, an increased infertility rate, and poor pregnancy outcomes, while male offspring have an increased incidence of genital abnormalities and a possibly increased risk of prostate and testicular cancer. These observed human effects have been confirmed in numerous animal models, which have also predicted changes later found in DES-exposed humans, such as increased incidence of uterine fibroids, oviductal malformations, and second generational effects such as increased menstrual irregularities and possibly ovarian cancer in DES granddaughters and increased hypospadias in DES grandsons.

Diethylstilbestrol shows the adverse effects of fetal exposures to synthetic chemicals may not be apparent at birth or even for many years afterward, and that continued monitoring of this cohort of exposed children and grandchildren is necessary to inform potential effects of prenatal exposures to other contaminants.

Reference. Image credit Hush Naidoo.

DES DiEthylStilbestrol Resources

Autism outcomes in DES grandchildren : support the first study !

Help Fund Research into Neurodevelopment and Behavioral Impacts of DES

” My name is Jill Escher. I’m a science philanthropist who kickstarts pioneering research projects investigating the generational toxicity of certain potent exposures, including DES, tobacco and other drugs. While I’m not a DES daughter, I was exposed to a multitude of other synthetic steroid hormones in utero as part of a then-popular, if ineffective, “anti-miscarriage” practice. You can read my story here. You can see my science website at GermlineExposures.org.

Based on human, animal, and in vitro studies, as well as family interviews, I hypothesize that diethylstilbestrol DES, along with several other toxic substances, can damage the genomic information in early fetal-stage gametes. For a variety of reasons, the early gamete is probably the single most vulnerable stage of the human lifecycle. Damage during that phase, which could be genetic or epigenetic in nature, can manifest as abnormal development in the subsequent offspring.

For example, I hypothesize that the intensive synthetic steroid hormone drug regimen to which I was subjected as a fetus subtly deranged the molecular programming of my early eggs. This derangement I believe resulted in the starkly abnormal neurodevelopment — autism — of my children. I have met many other families with the same story.

Support Research into the Far-Reaching Generational Toxicity of DES, germline exposures, 10/10/2016.

Autism by pycik.

I am pleased to announce that I am funding the world’s first research study into the grandchild effects of DES (3d gen), looking specifically at neurodevelopment and behavioral impacts. This work will be done in collaboration with Harvard University, based on the Nurses’ Health Study II.

Thank you for your support! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me. “

Jill Escher, President of Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area, 10/10/2016.

More DES DiEthylStilbestrol Resources

Proliferative Lesions and Reproductive Tract Tumors in Male Descendants of Mice exposed to DES

Increased incidence of proliferative lesions of the rete testis and tumors of the reproductive tract observed in DES lineage mice, apparently transmitted to subsequent generations

Abstract

image of PubMed NCBI The Endocrine Society logo
Increased susceptibility to tumor formation is apparently transmitted to subsequent generation.

Prenatal exposure to Diethylstilbestrol (DES) is associated with reproductive tract abnormalities,  subfertility and neoplasia in experimental animals and humans. Studies using experimental animals suggest that the carcinogenic effects of DES may be transmitted to succeeding generations. To further evaluate this possibility and to determine if there is a sensitive window of exposure, outbred CD-1 mice were treated with DES during three developmental stages: group 1 was treated on days 9-16 of gestation (2.5, 5 or 10 microg/kg maternal body weight) during major organogenesis; group II was treated once on day 18 of gestation (1000 microg/kg maternal body weight) just prior to birth; and group III was treated on days 1-5 of neonatal life (0.002 microg/pup/day). DES-exposed female mice (F(1)) were raised to maturity and bred to control males to generate DES-lineage (F(2)) descendants. The F(2) males obtained from these matings are the subjects of this report; results in F(2) females have been reported previously [Newbold et al. (1998) CARCINOGENESIS:, 19, 1655-1663]. Reproductive performance of F(2) males when bred to control females was not different from control males. However, in DES F(2) males killed at 17-24 months, an increased incidence of proliferative lesions of the rete testis and tumors of the reproductive tract was observed. Since these increases were seen in all DES treatment groups, all exposure periods were considered susceptible to perturbation by DES. These data suggest that, while fertility of the DES F(2) mice appeared unaltered, increased susceptibility for tumors is transmitted from the DES ‘grandmothers’ to subsequent generations.

Sources:
  • Proliferative lesions and reproductive tract tumors in male descendants of mice exposed developmentally to diethylstilbestrol, NCBI, PMID: 10874014, 2000 Jul;21(7):1355-63.
  • Full text – Carcinogenesis Volume 21, Issue 7Pp. 1355-1363, OxfordJournals, 21/7/1355.long 2000.
More DES DiEthylStilbestrol Resources

Prevalence of HypoSpadias in GrandSons of Women exposed to DiEthylStilbestrol during Pregnancy

Significant proportion of boys exhibiting hypospadias in DES GrandSons

hhorages logo
Significant proportion of boys exhibiting hypospadias in DES GrandSons.
Hhorages 2011 study.

Prenatal Diethylstilbestrol (DES)-exposed mice have raised the suspicion of a transgenerational effect in the occurrence of genital malformation in males.

This nationwide cohort study in collaboration with a French association of DES-exposed women studied 529 families and showed that a significant proportion of boys born to DES daughters exhibited hypospadias with no other molecular defects identified.

Read full study: Prevalence of hypospadias in grandsons of women exposed to diethylstilbestrol during pregnancy: a multigenerational national cohort study
NCBI, by Marie-Odile Soyer-Gobillard, 30 June 2011.

Related posts:

More DES DiEthylStilbestrol Resources