BPA Exposure Tied to Undescended Testicles in Boys

Early study doesn't prove that common chemical causes the condition, experts say

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- Fetal exposure to the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) has been linked to low levels of a key developmental hormone in newborn boys with undescended testicles, according to an early new study.

The research adds to the list of growing health concerns related to BPA, which is widely used in food packaging. Government studies have shown that 92 percent of Americans have detectable levels of BPA in their bodies.

This study focused on boys with cryptorchidism, the medical term for undescended testicles. The condition occurs in 2 percent to 5 percent of newborn boys, according to the authors, and requires surgery to bring the testes out of the abdominal cavity. Boys born with cryptorchidism have an increased risk of fertility problems and testicular cancer in adulthood.

The researchers found that boys with cryptorchidism who had high levels of BPA in their fetal cord blood also had low levels of the hormone insulin-like 3, or INSL3, one of two hormones that regulate descent of the testicles.

The findings do not draw a direct link between BPA and cryptorchidism, as the newborns with undescended testicles did not have greatly increased levels of BPA compared with newborns without the birth defect.

Researchers found, however, that the BPA level in newborns' cord blood inversely correlated with the level of INSL3. That is, the higher the BPA level, the lower the level of the important testicular hormone.

The study was presented Sunday at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in San Francisco. The data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

"Alone, our study cannot be considered as definitive evidence for an environmental cause of undescended testis," lead author Dr. Patrick Fenichel, professor and head of reproductive endocrinology at the University Hospital of Nice, in France, said in a society news release. "But it suggests, for the first time in humans, a link that could contribute to one co-factor of [unexplained] undescended testis, the most frequent congenital malformation in male newborns."

This appears to be the first study that shows a link between INSL3 levels and BPA, said Shanna Swan, a professor and vice chair for research and mentoring in the department of preventive medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City.

"This hormone INSL3 has not been, to my knowledge, previously linked to any endocrine-disrupting chemicals," Swan said. "It's interesting, definitely, and it's an important step."

For the study, Fenichel and his colleagues studied 180 newborn boys between 2003 and 2005, including 52 boys born with one or two undescended testicles. They tested the infants' umbilical cord blood to measure levels of BPA and INSL3.

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Pesticide Exposure Linked to Changes in Fetal Movement: Study

Findings underscore need to protect developing brain, researcher says

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 12 (HealthDay News) -- A pregnant woman's exposure to environmental contaminants affects her unborn baby's heart rate and movement, a new study says.

"Both fetal motor activity and heart rate reveal how the fetus is maturing and give us a way to evaluate how exposures may be affecting the developing nervous system," study lead author Janet DiPietro, associate dean for research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a school news release.

The researchers analyzed blood samples from 50 high- and low-income pregnant women in and around Baltimore and found that they all had detectable levels of organochlorines, including DDT, PCBs and other pesticides that have been banned in the United States for more than 30 years.

High-income women had a greater concentration of chemicals than low-income women.

The blood samples were collected at 36 weeks of pregnancy, and measurements of fetal heart rate and movement also were taken at that time, according to the study, which was published online in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.

The researchers found that higher levels of some common environmental pollutants were associated with more frequent and vigorous fetal movement. Some of the chemicals also were associated with fewer changes in fetal heart rate, which normally parallel fetal movements.

"Most studies of environmental contaminants and child development wait until children are much older to evaluate effects of things the mother may have been exposed to during pregnancy," DiPietro said. "Here we have observed effects in utero."

How the prenatal period sets the stage for later child development is a subject of tremendous interest, DiPietro said.

"These results show that the developing fetus is susceptible to environmental exposures and that we can detect this by measuring fetal neurobehavior," she said. "This is yet more evidence for the need to protect the vulnerable developing brain from effects of environmental contaminants both before and after birth."

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Pesticide Exposure May Raise Parkinson's Risk, Study Suggests

Farming, country living could play a role, researchers say

By Alan Mozes

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, May 28 (HealthDay News) -- Prolonged exposure to pesticides, bug and weed killers, and solvents appears to raise the risk for developing Parkinson's disease, a new study says.

Italian investigators who reviewed more than 100 prior studies found exposure to such agents boosted Parkinson's disease risk by anywhere from 33 percent to 80 percent, they reported in the May 28 issue of the journal Neurology.

"Due to this association, there was also a link between farming or country living and developing Parkinson's in some of the studies," study leader Dr. Emanuele Cereda, of the IRCCS University Hospital San Matteo Foundation in Pavia, said in a journal news release.

Some studies specifically explored how home or work environment affected disease risk. Where individuals got their water also was the subject of some investigations.

Exposure either to the weed killer paraquat or the fungicides maneb and mancozeb appeared to double the risk for Parkinson's, a progressive movement disorder, the researchers found.

"We didn't study whether the type of exposure, such as whether the compound was inhaled or absorbed through the skin, and the method of application, such as spraying or mixing, affected Parkinson's risk," Cereda said. "However, our study suggests that the risk increases in a dose response manner as the length of exposure to these chemicals increases."

Although the research found a link between certain chemicals and Parkinson's, it didn't prove they actually cause the disorder.

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Early Exposure to Gluten May Help Babies Avoid Celiac Risk: Study

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Feb. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Modifying an infant's diet to include the protein gluten while the mother is still breast-feeding could lower the risk of celiac disease, a common intestinal disorder, according to a new Swedish study.

That finding may sound counterintuitive, because celiac disease is a condition in which the lining of the small intestine is damaged by gluten-containing foods.

However, the researchers who conducted the study speculate that there may be a window of opportunity in which an infant can develop tolerance to the protein to possibly escape getting the disease.

"We now have proven this way of introducing gluten reduces the risk of getting celiac disease," said Dr. Anneli Ivarsson, a pediatrician at Umea University in Umea, and lead author of the study published online Feb. 18 and in the March print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Gluten refers to proteins found in specific grains, including all forms of wheat and related grains such as barley and rye, according to the Celiac Disease Foundation.

Celiac disease affects about 1 percent of the population, according to Ivarsson. Genetic susceptibility plays a role. For those affected, a life-long gluten-free diet is advised.

Ivarsson and her team compared two groups of Swedish children: one born in 1993, during a time when the diagnosis of celiac disease increased four-fold, and the other group born in 1997, when it declined about the same amount. The children born later had a 25 percent lower risk of having celiac disease than those born earlier, they found.

"That's quite a lot," Ivarsson said.

While 2.9 percent of those in the earlier born group had the disease, 2.2 percent of those in the later-born group did.

The beginning and the end of the period in which the celiac disease diagnoses rose were both marked by changes in recommended feeding of infants, including the best age to introduce gluten-containing foods, the researchers noted.

In 1982, experts recommended that gluten-containing foods not be given until an infant was 6 months old. In 1996, the experts recommended that gluten be introduced from 4 months on.

Experts know that a baby develops what they call oral tolerance to an antigen (a substance that produces protective antibodies) early in life. Celiac disease ''can be viewed as a failure to develop oral tolerance to gluten, or a later loss of this tolerance," Ivarsson wrote in her report.

In her study, babies born in the later group, who were introduced to gluten-containing foods at 4 months on, were less likely to develop celiac disease.

"We can't prove there is a window of opportunity" for developing tolerance, Ivarsson said, but that is one speculation.

The findings suggest -- but don't prove -- that gradually introducing gluten-containing foods in small amounts from 4 months of age, ideally while breast-feeding is ongoing, may protect against celiac disease.

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Short-term exposure to essential oils lowers blood pressure and heart rate... but only when exposure is less than one hour

Nov. 29, 2012 — The scents which permeate our health spas from aromatic essential oils may provide more benefits than just a sense of rest and well-being.

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For according to a new study(1) in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, the essential oils which form the basis of aromatherapy for stress relief are also reported to have a beneficial effect on heart rate and blood pressure following short-term exposure -- and may therefore reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, on the downside, those beneficial effects were reversed when exposure to essential oils lasted more than an hour.

The study was performed in men and women working in various spa centres in the city of Taipei in Taiwan, where the traditions of ancient Chinese civilisations are maintained in religious ceremonies and healing therapies. Aromatherapy, as practised today, is still presented as natural healing with essential oils extracted by infusion from aromatic plants.

One hundred young, healthy non-smoking spa workers taking part in the study visited the study centre on three occasions (about once a week), when each volunteer was exposed to vapours of essential oils released from an ultrasonic ioniser for two hours. During this time and on each visit three repeated measurements -- resting heart rate, systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) -- were taken from each spa worker in the study room, a small space measuring 4 metres in height by 3.5 m in length and 3.2 m in width. Before each participant entered the study room, 100% pure bergamot essential oil was vaporised for 1 hour.

Essential oils are volatile organic compounds (VOCs) composed of hundreds of aromatic chemicals, and VOC levels in the room were also measured throughout the study period.

Results showed (after adjusting for age, sex, BMI, day of the week, and visit order) that the room's VOC level was significantly associated with reduced blood pressure and heart rate for between 15 and 60 minutes after the start of exposure. These associations were statistically significant. For example, after 45 minutes exposure 15-minute SBP had reduced by a mean of 2.10 mmHg and heart rate by 2.21 beats per minute.

However, after exposure for more than 1 hour -- from 75 to 120 minutes after the start of exposure -- VOC levels became associated with an increased 15-minute mean blood pressure and heart rate. After 120 minutes, for example, mean SBP had risen from baseline by 2.19 mmHg, and heart rate by 1.70 beats per minutes. Thus, say the authors, "prolonged exposure for longer than 1 hour to essential oils may be harmful to cardiovascular health in young, healthy subjects."

As background to the study the authors note that aromatherapy has long been used for stress relief and associated with some healing properties. Even exposure to the essential oil vapours from fragrant candles has been found to reduce test-taking anxiety among nursing school students in the USA.

However, says investigator Dr Kai-Jen Chuang from Taipei Medical University in Taiwan, it is still unknown if exposure to essential oil increases the risk of cardiovascular events through a partial effect on blood pressure and heart rate.

"Our results suggest that exposure to essential oil for 1 hour would be effective in reducing heart rate and blood pressure," said Dr Chuang. "However, the most interesting finding of our study is that exposure to essential oil for over an hour was associated with elevated blood pressure and heart rate."

Dr Chuang explained that, although the effect of essential oils on stress reduction has been well documented, epidemiological studies have reported an association between VOCs and cardiopulmonary effects -- asthma among hairdressers, for example. Studies by Chuang's own group in Taiwan have already shown that exposure to VOCs for over an hour in hair salons can lead to increased serum levels of C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation) and 8-OHdG (a marker of oxidative stress). Overexposure to essential oils, he suggested, may in such ways be harmful to cardiovascular health in young, healthy subjects.

He also noted the opinion of the American Heart Association on air pollution in the development of cardiovascular disease. This acknowledges the direct effects of air pollution on the lung and cardiovascular system through neural and central mechanisms to cause a systemic inflammatory response. "These potential biological processes may also be applied to the adverse effects of VOC exposure on cardiovascular health, although at this time there is no proof available for this hypothesis," said Dr Chuang.

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