EU-funded researchers investigate newborns' weight
When pregnant women experience increased levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the body, their newborn babies are likely to be underweight. This is the finding from a new EU-funded study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Researchers from Belgium, Denmark, Faeroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, and Spain had their funding boosted from two projects supported by the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The team conducted a study of 8 000 pregnant women who gave birth between 1990 and 2008 throughout Europe, and tested them for concentrations of PCBs in the blood. The researchers studied samples of human breast milk and blood from the mothers and/or blood from the umbilical cord, and tested them for the presence of the PCB congener 153 as well as dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), a product released in the breakdown of the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). They then compared these results with the weights of their newborn babies. The research is supported by near on EUR 1 million from the ENRIECO ('Environmental health risks in European birth cohorts') project and almost EUR 3 million from the OBELIX ('Obesogenic endocrine disrupting chemicals: linking prenatal exposure to the development of obesity later in life') project. These were supported by the 'Environment' and 'Food, agriculture and fisheries, and biotechnology' Themes of FP7, respectively. Banned in most countries for several decades due to their toxicity and classification as a persistent organic pollutant, PCBs were previously used as dielectric and coolant fluids, for example in transformers, capacitors, and electric motors. However, as they are very stable, and can accumulate in the fatty tissue of people and animals, they remain present. The main source of PCBs in people is from the consumption of fatty fish, but other sources are also found in the environment. There remains uncertainly surrounding the effects of low doses in pregnant women. The results reveal a clear link between PCB concentration and the weight of the newborn baby. Mothers with a PCB concentration in the umbilical cord blood of 1 microgram per litre gave birth to babies that were 150 g lighter than were babies born to mothers with an undetectable concentration in their blood. Smoking serves as a comparison: mothers who smoked during their pregnancy had babies with a similar decrease in birth weight. For the other tested substance, DDE, no effect on birth weight was established. The researchers continue to analyse the way in which the higher PCB concentrations result in a lower birth weight, as it is possible that PCBs disrupt the hormone balance and thus also the growth of the foetus. This study therefore shows that curbing the use of PCBs was a prudent measure at the time, and that the continued follow-up of foreign substances in the human body is essential. The overall aim of ENRIECO is to advance our knowledge on specific environment-health causal relationships in pregnancy and birth cohorts. The project supports exploitation of the wealth of data generated by past or ongoing studies funded by the European Commission and national programmes. Specific objectives are to make inventories of birth cohorts, assure quality and interoperability of exposure, health and exposure-response data, obtain data access, build databases, conduct analyses, make recommendations for data collection in the future to improve environment-health linkages and information, and disseminate the information. The OBELIX project focuses on research into childhood obesity, which has reached epidemic proportions globally; it addresses the urgent need to increase our understanding of the impact of food contaminants on obesity development.For more information, please visit: VITO: http://www.vito.be/VITO/EN/HomepageAdmin/Home/home/(opens in new window)
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