Search this blog ScienceBlogs - Nov 26, 2008 Perhaps the best-known example is bisphenol-A. Others include various pharmaceuticals, dioxin and dioxin-like compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls, DDT and ...
Source: Google News
Recent News and Articles on the Keywords: ddt + developmental + linked Related to the article below (Last Update: 8/5/2008)
Carcinogens in our Homes and Environment Cancer Monthly, NC - And even when a handful of chemicals are phased out?like DDT and the herbicide 2,4,5-T?more toxins are introduced. Clapp and his colleagues cite the need ...
Kit cleans up fire extinguishers' mess ScienceAlert, Australia - Aug 4, 2008 ?These fluorinated compounds ? known as PFOS ? are highly persistent, both in humans and in the environment, more so even than DDT. They last for years and ...
Group sues to ban DDT-related pesticide San Jose Mercury News, USA - Jul 24, 2008 A state study released last year suggested a link between autism and exposure to organochlorine pesticides like endosulfan.
Enviro-Labor Coalitions Challenge Two Toxic Pesticides Environment News Service - Jul 31, 2008 Endosulfan is an organochlorine, part of the same family of chemicals as DDT, which the EPA banned in 1972. Crops commonly treated with endosulfan include ...
Crusader against plant receives alarming news San Francisco Chronicle, USA - Jul 7, 2008 She was contaminated with high levels of DDE - a metabolized form of DDT, a pesticide banned in the United States since 1972. Steve's DDE level was above ...
CITY BLOGS The Post, Pakistan - Jul 23, 2008 Predictably breast milk was also discovered to contain DDT residue as mothers necessarily consume all these contaminated foodstuffs and drink the polluted ...
Commentary: Bajans, Guyanese and the politics of hate Caribbean Net News, Cayman Islands - Jul 25, 2008 East Indians became a real problem in Guyana only after DDT cut malaria and reduced their infant mortality in the 1940?s and 1950?s and their population ...
Nairobi developing, but is neglecting its environment Africa Science News Service, Kenya - Jul 8, 2008 Up to day, DDT has been detected in all waters of the globe. Throughout the city of Nairobi forests areas are continually paving way for development giving ...
Chemical Causes of Diabetes: Overeating Is Not the Only Problem Natural News.com, AZ - Jul 24, 2008 "The development of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus is thought to be dependent on the interaction of environmental agents with the pancreatic beta cells ...
Ban Highly Persistent Pesticide From Our Food. Scoop.co.nz (press release), New Zealand - Jul 9, 2008 ?Another highly residual organochlorine pesticide like endosulfan, DDT has caused huge economic costs to New Zealand although long banned. ...
Source: Google News
Developmental effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in wildlife and humans - T Colborn, FS Vom Saal, AM Soto - Environmental Health Perspectives, 1993 - Mass Med Soc ... contained DDE residues even though DDT was banned ... cell proliferation and has been linked to breast ...Developmental effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in ...
DDT resistance in flies carries no cost - C McCart, A Buckling, RH ffrench-Constant - Current Biology, 2005 - Elsevier ... of larvae and pupae of the DDT-R genotypes. ... this advantage is obscured during faster development at 25 ... Thus, although the female linked fitness advantage could ...
Children breast-fed longer than three months less likely to wet, study suggests.
By Kathleen Doheny HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, July 5 (HealthDay News) -- Babies who are breast-fed for longer than three months are less likely to become bed-wetters, a new study suggests.
"Although this data is preliminary data, my advice [to mothers] would be to breast-feed their babies longer than three months for the developmental advantages this provides, and one of those may be protection against bed-wetting," said study author Dr. Joseph G. Barone, a pediatrics expert at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J.
But another bed-wetting expert, Dr. Howard Bennett, a Washington, D.C., pediatrician, cautioned that the study findings, published in the July issue of the journal Pediatrics, are preliminary.
"I think it's a thought-provoking study, and it sets the stage for a further look. It is interesting to us as doctors but not quite ready for prime time," said Bennett, who wrote Waking Up Dry: A Guide to Help Children Overcome Bedwetting for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Barone, who acknowledged that the research is preliminary, explained how his team decided to study the possible link: "There have been a lot of studies done looking at general child development and breast-feeding. And those have shown that children who are breast-fed have developmental advantages compared to children who are formula-fed," he said. Those gains include better vision and cognitive skills, Barone said, adding, "Bed-wetting is associated with developmental delay."
Barone's team looked at 5- to 13-year-olds -- 55 were or had been bed-wetters and 117 were not. The researchers asked the parents about breast-feeding history, family history of bed-wetting and other data. Among the 55 bed-wetters, 45.5 percent had been breast-fed. Among children who didn't wet the bed, 81.2 percent had been breast-fed.
The researchers also found that children who didn't wet the bed had been breast-fed for a longer period than bed-wetters, an average of three months longer.
When the researchers categorized the children based on duration of breast-feeding, they found that breast-feeding less than three months wasn't associated with a protective effect against bed-wetting.
That finding meshes with other studies that revealed developmental advantages associated with breast-feeding longer than three months, Barone said.
An estimated 40 percent of 3-year-olds wet the bed, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. The exact causes aren't totally understood, but experts believe that, for some children, the bladder isn't developed enough to hold urine for a full night. Other children can't yet recognize when their bladder is full and don't wake up in time to relieve themselves.
Family history also seems to play a big role, Bennett said. If two parents wet the bed as children, their child has a 77 percent chance of being a bed-wetter. If one parent did, the child has about a 43 percent chance. If neither parent did, there's only a 15 percent chance their child will have a bed-wetting problem, he said.
And Bennett noted: "It is much too early to add 'the prevention of bed-wetting' is another reason why mothers should breast-feed their babies. Because of this study, mothers should not feel guilty they did not breast-feed or breast-feed long enough."
(SOURCES: Joseph G. Barone, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics and urology, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, N.J.; Howard Bennett, M.D., pediatrician, Washington, D.C., and author, Waking Up Dry: A Guide to Help Children Overcome Bedwetting, 2005, American Academy of Pediatrics; July 2006, Pediatrics)
New research out of California suggests that DDT causes developmental delays in infants whose mothers were exposed to the pesticide.
DDT is currently banned in the United States, but officials in Africa are considering expanding its use to combat mosquitoes that spread malaria.
The new findings -- along with the potential benefits of DDT use to reduce malaria -- "need to be considered by the policymakers," said study author Brenda Eskenazi, a professor of epidemiology and maternal and child health at the University of California, Berkeley.
Environmentalists have long expressed concern that DDT is toxic to humans, and its use has been limited or banned across the world. In the United States, it's been banned since 1972.
While it does appears to be hazardous to some animals, DDT's health effects on humans are still being studied, said Dr. Walter Rogan, senior investigator in the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' epidemiology branch. It's not clear, he said, that DDT has ever killed anyone.
Rogan's agency helped pay for the study, but he did not participate in it.
The study is the first to look at the direct effects of DDT on infant development rather than the effects of DDT's byproducts.
The researchers examined blood levels of DDT and one of the breakdown products -- known as DDE -- in 360 pregnant women from California's Central Valley who are participating in a long-term UC Berkeley project called the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS).
The project is designed to examine the effects of pesticides and other environmental factors on the health of pregnant Latina women and their children living in what the researchers call "one of the most intensely farmed regions in the world."
Ninety percent of the women in the study were born in Mexico, where DDT was widely used in agriculture during the 1970s, then used to control mosquitoes until 1995. In 2000, a complete ban went into effect.
The researchers tested the mental and physical skills of the women's infants at 6, 12 and 24 months of age. The researchers adjusted their findings to account for a variety of outside factors, such as education level and income.
The babies of mothers with the highest DDT exposure showed signs of delayed mental development at 12 months and 24 months.
For each tenfold increase in DDT levels measured in the mother, the researchers found a corresponding two- to three-point decrease in the child's mental development scores at 12 and 24 months. In physical skills exams, there were two-point decreases in children's scores at 6 months and 12 months for each tenfold increase in DDT levels in the mothers. No decrease was found at 24 months.
The researchers said changes in individual children due to DDT exposure might not be readily noticeable. However, "if this association is uniform across the population, you would see more children with problems in the population," Eskenazi said.
The findings are published in the July issue of Pediatrics.
The researchers also found that breast-feeding seemed to help the infants of mothers who were heavily exposed to DDT. They developed more normally, even though DDT is transmitted through breast milk.
People are typically exposed to DDT by coming into contact with the pesticide spray or by eating food that has been sprayed, Rogan said.
It's not clear what DDT physically does to the brains of infants whose mothers are exposed to it, he said. It's also not known if the developmental effects in infants will be permanent.
As for countries considering the use of DDT to fight malaria, Rogan said, "They have to entertain the idea that DDT is not an entirely innocuous compound. If you think about it, it's implausible that it would be," he said, adding that, after all, DDT is a poison designed to kill living things.
