Common Environmental Toxin Linked to Obesity, Study Finds

One-quarter of babies born to women with high blood levels of a breakdown product of DDT--a persistent, ubiquitous enivronmental toxin--grew unusually fast for at least the first year of life. Such rapid growth in early infancy has put children on track to become obese. The babies' birthweights were normal, and the mothers were also normal weight, suggesting the toxins' presence triggers a hormonal cascade that accelerates growth and weight gain. 

Increasingly, data suggests that some pollutants — known colloquially as obesogens — can trigger the body to put on the pounds. In animals, these pollutants will sometimes lead a mouse to become rotund despite eating no more and exercising no less than its lean cousins.

Many obesogens — including DDE, the DDT breakdown product — have a hormonal alter ego. In the body, DDE can either turn on or block the activity of natural estrogens, female sex hormones. This pollutant also can block the activity of male sex hormones. Such properties lead scientists to describe this pesticide derivative as an endocrine disrupter. Click here to read about the study in ScienceNews.