Photo: Jorge Mejía Peralta (Flickr)
Babies whose mothers have high levels of DDE (a DDT pesticide derivative) on their blood have higher possibilities of having an acceleration in their growth during the first six months of pregnancy as well as a high body mass index during their first fourteen months. This is a CREAL (Centre de Recerca en Epidemiologia Ambiental) research result couting with data collected between 2004 and 2006 from 518 women living in Sabadell and participating on the research from their first month of pregnancy.
Despite DDT is banned in Spain from 1977, this derivative (DDE) still persists in the organism adipose tissue because its degradation process is very slow. Recently, researchers have defined DDE as an encrine disruptor, namely, a substance that can alter hormonal balance.
CREAL research shows that 388 babies born from mothers with a normal weight and DDE high levels take twice as much the risk of suffering fast growth and five times as much the risk of suffering from overweight when they are 14 months old. Likewise their body mass index is higher than 85%. This increases their risk of suffering from obesity later as well as when they become adult.
So far it had been shown that antenatal exposure to DDE was linked to elder children (three years old) obesity as well as to adult people. Now, for the first time, the influence during the first moments of postnatal development has been shown being an additional example of the importance that environmental factors and pollution have on children health.
The research has been directed by Michelle Méndez and it has been published on Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) magazine. Mrs Méndez explains that we cannot avoid having contact with the substances derivatives from DDT still surviving in our environment, nor can we eliminate the ones that are on our body, but it is important “to improve our knowledge about the factors that are linked to obesity, mostly in children and teenagers in order to know what we can do to identify the high risk people and prevent obesity”.
In that sense, the researcher has reminded us that it is important that children keep a healthy diet and practice sport regularly.
Tags: child health, childhood, CREAL, pollution, way of life
Tags: child health, childhood, CREAL, pollution, way of life
