Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 12:48:22 -0700
From: Cathy Booler
Subject: TC: chemicals breed big kids


===== A message from the 'toxicscaucus' discussion list =====

PUBLICATION The Hamilton Spectator
DATE Saturday April 29, 2000
PAGE A01
BYLINE Julia Mcnamee Neenan

HEADLINE: Chemicals breed big kids

Bigger kids may be the result of prenatal exposure to certain chemicals.

New research claims the chemicals -- DDE, a product of bug killer DDT, and PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl), a liquid electric insulator -- are believed to be present in most people today because their use was so widespread for so long. Researchers now say that boys exposed to relatively high amounts of DDE in the womb grow up to be heavier, taller teenagers. Girls with prenatal exposure to high amounts of PCB grow up to be heavier than their peers who were exposed to smaller amounts.

The chemicals apparently affect the children's hormones, although few specifics are known. Results of the research appear in the Journal of Pediatrics.

"There's a general consensus that this class of chemicals has hormonal effects," said lead researcher Beth Gladen, a mathematical ** statistician at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina.

Although both DDE and PCB were banned in the United States in the 1970s, residents continue to carry both chemicals in their bodies, Gladen said. However, levels have been dropping internationally for years.

Experts theorize that people continue to absorb the chemicals, partly because other countries have not banned them.

"DDT was just used so extensively that it's found everywhere in the world," Gladen said. "It's found in all people today just because it's all over."

_


Gladen's research was part of the North Carolina Infant Feeding Study, which tested expectant and new mothers and their breast milk, if they were breastfeeding, for chemicals from 1978 through 1982. Of the 850 original participants, 594 later answered questions relating to size and puberty, beginning in 1992, when the children were generally 12 to 14 years old.

Comparing heights, the 45 boys whose mothers' DDE levels were the highest group -- with more than four parts per million in milk fat -- stood an average of 66.3 inches, compared with 63.57 inches for the 21 boys whose mothers' DDE levels were in the smallest group.

The boys in the highest DDE group weighed, on average, 134 pounds versus 118 pounds for the boys in the lowest DDE group. Levels of PCB exposure did not create statistical differences for boys.

For girls, the opposite was true. DDE exposure registered no significant differences in height or weight.

But the girls whose mothers' PCB levels fell in the highest group, more than three parts per million, weighed an average 126 pounds, compared with 114 pounds for those whose mothers' PCB levels were in the lowest group. The actual numbers were only statistically significant for white girls.

DDT began to be used heavily after the Second World War, when it was believed to be both effective and nontoxic, said another author of the study, Dr. Walter Rogan, an epidemiologist also with the ** National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Both researchers contend that current research creates a muddy picture. Most studies involve various animals at different stages of development.

Both DDE and PCBs are actually families of chemicals, meaning that data is needed on different levels of all specific branches of the families. Finally, they say, the chemicals seem to work both for and against male and female hormones.

The researchers say they might have expected the children in this study to show signs of earlier puberty if they were bigger than their peers because physical growth usually is paired with onset of puberty.

But no such signs were found.

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Cathy Booler
Administrative Director
Georgia Strait Alliance
195 Commercial Street
Nanaimo, BC V9R 5G5

cathy@georgiastrait.org
gsa@georgiastrait.org
www.georgiastrait.org

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