As the use of the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT, picked up in the 1950s, scientists soon began noticing a troubling trend: Rates of diabetes, miscarriages, and certain types of cancers increased.
And while DDT has fallen out of use in the United States, researchers now say there’s another consequence all Americans should watch out for: An increased risk of obesity.
But this effect first showed up in the grandchildren of those exposed to DDT.
“Interestingly, in the first generation, we didn’t see any obesity. We saw many diseases, but not obesity. It took three generations to ramp up,” says Michael Skinner, a researcher and founder of the Center for Reproductive Biology at Washington State University. “What this ancestral exposure does is increase a person’s susceptibility for obesity. This is probably the case with most diseases.”
The Study’s Findings
Publishing his findings in the journal BMC Medicine, Skinner and his team of researchers looked at how exposure to DDT affected pregnant rats–namely its effects on offspring. And while many diseases cropped up in the first generation offspring–that has already been known by researchers for decades–something curious happened when their offspring also had children.
The effect? 50 percent of their offspring were obese–a startling statistic.
As for the reasons why this may be occurring, Skinner has a theory.
“This doesn’t promote the disease, but it increases the susceptibility to develop a disease,” says Skinner. Adding to this, he also says that DDT may affect which genes are expressed during natal development, which then can be passed on to further generations. In this study, it appears DDT altered the genes that predispose a baby for obesity.
How These Findings Apply to You
Chances are if you had a grandparent or parent who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, they were exposed to DDT, whether they knew about it or not. And although DDT was officially banned in 1972–41 years ago–researchers still say traces of it can be found in rivers and lakes, affecting our natural ecosystem.
“Literally, DDT is around for hundreds of years,” says Skinner. “This is something that just doesn’t go away. Now we need to concern ourselves and reevaluate using DDT. The reason we did this one [study] was because around four years ago the World Health Organization and the Gates Foundation pushed to remove the ban on DDT so they could use it for malaria treatment, mainly in Africa.”
And now that research has emerged about its effects on obesity, it’s hard to ignore the correlation–in the 1950s, the obesity rate was well under 10 percent, but now it affects nearly 30 percent of Americans.
So what can you do about it? Unfortunately, not much–but if you fear you have been exposed to DDT, increasing your intake of antioxidant-rich foods, such as cranberries and grapes, may offset some of the negative effects of this chemical and keep your waist slim.
Readers: Have you or someone you know been exposed to pesticides before?
Source:
DDT Pesticide May Cause Obesity in a Strange Way – HealthLine.com
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