Saturday, May 12, 2007
Missing Boys + Endocrine Disrupters
The proportion of boys to girls is getting less. Fewer boys were born over the past three decades in the United States and in Japan. The "shortfall" in boys now stands at more than a quarter of a million boys.
What is happening to create this loss? One strong suspicion is that fetuses are being exposed to endocrine disrupter chemicals. For example, the area with the most skewed ratio, where almost twice as many girls as boys are being born, is Sarnia, Canada, in a community downwind of petrochemical plants. The suspicion is that "males during fetal development may be more sensitive to pollutants that mimic hormones, leading to increased fetal deaths and reproductive problems later for the surviving males." These findings could also "be linked to the increasing number of other male reproductive problems, such as falling sperm counts and rising testicular cancer rates."
Other factors may be rising obesity rates, older parental age, growing stress levels, and the increasing number of children being conceived using fertility aides.
This study was led by Devra Lee Davis, a prominent epidemiologist and director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Information for this blog came from an article, "Endocrine Disrupters May be Answer to the Mystery of the Missing Boys," by Martin Mittelstaedt, CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc, April 11, 2007, reprinted in Our Toxic Times, Volume 18, Number 5. The study was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer reviewed journal of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
What is happening to create this loss? One strong suspicion is that fetuses are being exposed to endocrine disrupter chemicals. For example, the area with the most skewed ratio, where almost twice as many girls as boys are being born, is Sarnia, Canada, in a community downwind of petrochemical plants. The suspicion is that "males during fetal development may be more sensitive to pollutants that mimic hormones, leading to increased fetal deaths and reproductive problems later for the surviving males." These findings could also "be linked to the increasing number of other male reproductive problems, such as falling sperm counts and rising testicular cancer rates."
Other factors may be rising obesity rates, older parental age, growing stress levels, and the increasing number of children being conceived using fertility aides.
This study was led by Devra Lee Davis, a prominent epidemiologist and director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Information for this blog came from an article, "Endocrine Disrupters May be Answer to the Mystery of the Missing Boys," by Martin Mittelstaedt, CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc, April 11, 2007, reprinted in Our Toxic Times, Volume 18, Number 5. The study was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer reviewed journal of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]