In
iedere placenta minstens 1 pesticide.*
Mensen zijn rechtstreeks verantwoordelijk voor meer dan 110.000 chemische stoffen die gemaakt zijn sinds de industriële revolutie. Ieder jaar komen daar nog meer dan 2.000 nieuwe bij die allemaal in het milieu terecht komen en gevonden worden in voeding, lucht, bodem en water. Zo komen ze ook in het menselijke lichaam terecht. Het merendeel kan door het lichaam niet afgebroken worden en wordt vaak in vet opgeslagen. Dit is nu zeer verontrustend voor een zwangere vrouw want bij haar kunnen deze vreemde stoffen in direct contact komen met de placenta. Spaanse onderzoekers hebben nu gekeken naar de aanwezigheid van organische chloorverbindingen ook wel bekend als pesticiden in de placenta van zwangere vrouwen. In totaal werden 17 verschillende pesticiden gevonden. Deze pesticiden kunnen voor een ontregeling zorgen van het hormonenstelsel. Bij iedere zwangere vrouw bleek er tenminste 1 in de placenta te zitten. Sommige hadden er zelfs 15. Wat de precieze gevolgen van deze aanwezigheid van pesticiden zijn is in deze studie niet onderzocht doch men kan het ergste vermoeden.
100%
Of Pregnant Women Have At Least One Kind Of Pesticide In Their Placenta
Human
beings are directly responsible
for more than 110,000 chemical substances which have been generated since the
Industrial Revolution. Every year, we "invent" more than 2,000 new
substances, most of them contaminants, which are emitted into the environment
and which are consequently present in food, air, soil and water. Nonetheless,
human beings are also victims of these emissions, and involuntarily (what is
known in this scientific field as "inadvertent exposure"), every day
humans ingest many of these substances which cannot be assimilated by our body,
and are accumulated in the fatty parts of our tissues.
This is especially worrying for pregnant women. During the gestation period, all
the contaminants accumulated in the organism have direct access to the
microenvironment where the embryo/foetus develops. The doctoral thesis "Exposición
materno-infantil vía placentaria a compuestos químicos medioambientales con
actividad hormonal" (Maternal-child exposure via the placenta to
environmental chemical substances with hormonal activity), written by María José
López Espinosa, from the Department of Radiology and Physical Medicine of the
University of Granada (Universidad de Granada [http://www.ugr.es]), analyzes the
presence of organochlorine pesticides “normally used as pesticides- in the
organisms of pregnant women. The analysis was developed at San Cecilio
University Hospital, in Granada, with 308 women who had given birth to healthy
children between 2000 and 2002. The results are alarming: 100% of these pregnant
women had at least one pesticide in their placenta, but the average rate amounts
to eight different kinds of chemical substances.
Fifteen different pesticides in the organisms of pregnant women
In her study, through the analysis of the placentas, López studied the presence
of 17 endocrine disruptive organochlorine pesticides (i.e., pesticides which
interfere with the proper performance of the hormonal system). The results
showed that the most frequent pesticides present in the placenta tissue are DDE
(92.7%), lindane (74.8%), endosulfan diol (62.1%) y endosulfan-I (54.2%). Among
these, the most prevalent was endosulfan-diol, with an average concentration of
4.15 nanograms per gram of placenta (156.73 ng/g lipid). Surprisingly, the UGR
researcher discovered that some patients' placentas contained 15 of the 17
pesticides analyzed.
A total of 668 samples from pregnant women were used in this study, which was
approved by the Ethical Commission of San Cecilio University Hospital. Mothers
were informed of the study's goals before giving their express consent.
Thanks to gynaecologists, the nurses and the midwives who participated in the
study, biological samples were extracted from the blood, the umbilical cord and
the placenta during childbirth. The following day, an epidemiological survey was
carried out by trained survey statisticians. The survey contained questions on
the general data of the parents, their places of residence, profession, medical
history, anthropometric information, age, tobacco habits, lifestyle and diet
during pregnancy, among other factors.
The study made at the UGR [http://www.ugr.es] has facilitated research into the
association of the characteristics of parents, newborn babies and childbirth
with exposure to pesticides found in the mothers' placenta. Among the aspects
associated with a higher presence of pesticides we find an older age, higher
body mass index, less weight gained during pregnancy, lower educational level,
higher workplace exposure, first-time motherhood and lower weight in babies.
"Serious effects on the baby"
According to María José López, "we do not really know the consequences
of exposure to disruptive pesticides in children, but we can predict that they
may have serious effects, since this placenta exposure occurs at key moments of
the embryo's development".
The research group to which María José López belongs, directed by Prof. Nicolás
Olea Serrano, has conducted several studies which associate exposure to
pesticides with neonatal malformations if the genito-urinary system, such as
cryptorchidism (undropped testicles) and hypospadias (total fusion of the
urethral folds).
The UGR researcher underlines the fact that, in spite of "inadvertent
exposure", "it is possible to control pesticide ingestion by means of
a proper diet, which should be healthy and balanced, through consumption of food
whose chemical content is low. Moreover, daily exercise and the avoidance of
tobacco (which could also be a source of inadvertent exposure) are very
important habits which help to control the presence of pesticides in our
organisms.
The UGR researcher's work is framed within the objectives established in the
research project "Increasing incidence of human male reproductive health
disorders in relation to environmental effects on growth-and sex steroid-induced
alterations in programmed development" (Environmental Reproductive Health),
directed and carried out by a multidisciplinary group of clinicians, basic
researchers and epidemiologists at several institutions from countries such as
Denmark, Finland or England and financed by the European Union
(QLK4-1999-01422).
UNIVERSITY
OF GRANADA - COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT
Secretariado de Comunicación - Universidad de Granada
Hospital Real - Cuesta del Hospicio s/n (Mei 2007)