For obesity: Early exposure to common chemicals will change the metabolic system long term

Obesity is often debated in terms of absorbing calories (how much a person eats) and energy output (a person who is active or less). However, according to a University of Missouri-Columbia scientist, environmental chemicals found in everyday plastics or pesticides may also affect obesity.

Frederick Vom Saal, a professor of biological sciences at the Department of Arts and Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia, discovered that when the fetuses are exposed to these chemicals, the direction of the genes of they can be changed to make them more susceptible to obesity or disease.

Vom Saal said: 'Certain substances in the environment called endocrine disruptors can alter the activity of a fetus' genes that alter a baby's metabolic system and making that boy or girl likely to suffer from obesity. This individual can eat the same dish and move like someone with a normal metabolic system but he or she will become obese while the other person is still slim. This is a serious problem because obesity puts people at risk for other problems including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension. '

Using lab rats, Vom Saal studied the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals including bisphenol-A chemical compounds that recently became news in San Francisco, where controversy Bisphenol-A is used in children's products after the regulation. In the recent study of vom Saal that he will present at the 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting, he discovered that chemicals break down endocrine making rats born very low in weight and then unusually large in a short period of time, more than twice the body weight in just 7 days. Vom Saal watched these mice as they grew older and found that they were " obese " throughout their lives. He said studies of low-birth-weight babies at birth suggest excess postpartum compensation leading to lifelong obesity.

Chemicals that are suspected of breaking the endocrine such as personal care products, metal, chemical industry, pharmaceuticals .(Photo: dnr.metrokc.gov)

Vom Saal said: 'Children are born with low body weight and a metabolic system that has' programmed' for starvation. This system is called a 'thrifty phenotype', a system that is expected to maximize the use of all food absorbed into the body. The problem occurs when the child is not born in a world of "hunger" but in a world of fast food restaurants and fatty foods. '

More studies must be conducted to determine which chemicals cause this effect. According to Vom Saal, there are about 55,000 artificial chemicals in the world and 1,000 of them may fall into the category of endocrine disruption. These chemicals can be found in conventional products from plastic bottles and containers to pesticides and electronics.

Vom Saal said: 'You inherit genes but how those genes develop during your early life also play an important role in the tendency to be obese or sick. People with other metabolic systems often have to live completely different lifestyles to avoid obesity because their systems function in the wrong way. We need to find out what we can do to understand and prevent this. '

'Predestination of obesity in the perinatal period: The interaction between nutrients and environmental exposures' is the name of vom Saal's presentation at the Association's Annual Meeting for the Advancement of Science United States 2007 (AAAS). Also presenting with Vom Saal at the AAAS Conference were Reth Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Bruce Blumberg of the University of California-Irvine and George Corcoran of the National University of Wayne and James O'Callaghan. National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.

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