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Fetal exposures lead to adult disease.
Some chemicals are directly toxic to an exposed child — lead and mercury, for example, which harm a developing brain — while other chemicals induce a chain of events that may culminate in a diagnosed health problem later in life. Hormone-mimicing chemicals like dioxins and furans, for example, could induce delayed cancers in hormone-sensitive tissues like the breast, testicle, or prostate gland. Chemicals like PCBs or DDT can reduce growth rates in the womb, initiating in low birthweight babies lasting, internal survival mechanisms that cascade into cardiovascular disease or diabetes later in life.
The fact is, a child can bear a lifelong imprint of risks from the countless molecules of industrial pollutants that find their way through the placenta, down the umbilical cord, and into the baby's body. The consequences — health disorders, subtle or serious — can surface not only in childhood but also in adulthood. Studies now support origins in early life exposures for a startling array of adult diseases, including Alzheimers, mental disorders, heart disease, and diabetes.
Laboratory studies show increased deposits of the Alzheimer-related protein amyloid in the brains of older animals exposed to lead as newborns, but not in animals that were exposed to an equal amount of lead as adults (Basha et al. 2005). And over the past two decades numerous studies have linked low birth weight with adult onset of coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, hypertension, depression and other conditions (Barker 1995, Wahlbeck et al. 2001, Thompson et al. 2001, Hales et al. 1991). Low birth weight can arise not only from poor maternal nutrition but also from a host of industrial pollutants, including arsenic, mercury, lead, organic solvents, PCBs, and pesticides, including DDT.
Recent studies shed new light on how early life chemical exposures set adult disease in motion. In laboratory studies scientists from the University of Texas found that fetal exposures to the synthetic hormone (and now-banned drug) DES permanently "reprogrammed" body tissues, dramatically raising rates of uterine cancer, in this case, in later life (Cook et al. 2005). With an estimated 75,000 chemicals registered for use in the U.S., and an average of seven new chemicals approved each day, many not tested for safety and certaintly not tested for their ability to "reprogram" body tissues, the ramifications of this study are enormous.
More From Body Burden — The Pollution in Newborns
Executive Summary
Babies are Vulnerable
Human Health Problems on the Rise
Guide to testing.
Adult Blood Test Results.
Why are babies born polluted?
Guest Commentary
Peer Statement
