Researchers have detected more than 50 new environmental chemicals in human bodies, the vast majority of which are little known or unknown compounds.
These chemicals – which have never been observed in humans before – were discovered in a study of pregnant women and their newborns.
The findings are worrying, as very little is known about these chemicals and their potential health consequences, say researchers from the new study. What’s more, pregnant women and their newborns are a particularly vulnerable population.
Related: What is PFAS?
“We are very concerned about this exposure that occurs during pregnancy because it is such a vulnerable period of development,” says senior author Tracey Woodruff, director of the Reproductive Health and Environment Program (PRHE) and the Environmental Research and Translation for Health. (EaRTH) Center, both at the University of California, San Francisco. “It can affect the mother’s health later. And it’s a vulnerable period of development for the fetus, so it can have childhood and lifelong consequences.”
Among these newly discovered chemicals were two perfluoroalkyl and polifluoroalkyls, or PFAS. These chemicals, which are used in consumer products, such as non-stick cooking utensils and pizza cans, stay in the human body for a long time and can, according to the Environmental Production Agency (EPA). Ten of the newly detected substances were plasticizers, or chemicals used in the manufacture of plastics. For example, one of the detected plasticizers, a group of chemicals called phthalates, is found in fast food packaging and is associated with adverse health consequences. Two of the newly discovered chemicals are used in cosmetics; one in pesticides.
But most – 37 – of these newly discovered chemicals are researchers who have little or no information, the authors write in the study, which was published in the journal on Tuesday (March 16). Environmental Science and Technology.
Mysterious chemicals
In spite of pregnancy Because it is a vulnerable period of development, there was a lack of data on chemicals to which mothers and fetuses could be exposed, in part due to a lack of methods to detect the chemicals, Woodruff told WordsSideKick. The authors write in the study that current methods of monitoring human exposure to chemicals only investigate for a few hundred of about 8,000 chemicals produced or imported in the US.
For this study, the researchers recruited 30 expectant women in need of antenatal and obstetric care at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and the UCSF Mission Bay Medical Center. Blood samples were collected during childbirth and the delivery of the mother and from the newborn’s umbilical cord (cord blood) just after birth.
The researchers analyzed the blood samples using a relatively new technique called high-resolution mass spectrometry, which determines the different masses of compounds to identify them. In this way, they were able to take photos of almost all of the chemicals found in blood samples from mothers and their newborn babies, co-author of the study, Dimitri Abrahamsson, a postdoctoral fellow at PRHE. “This has finally allowed us to find evidence for some chemicals that have apparently not been previously reported in humans,” he added. participated in the study.
The researchers identified 109 chemicals found in maternal and cord blood samples, including 55 that had never been found in humans before. Others found in the samples, such as phthalates, have previously been found in humans and have been linked to adverse health effects, such as reproductive problems. The researchers also found the two studied PFAS, known as PFOA and PFOS, in the mother and newborn samples. PFAS and PFOA have been shown to cause developmental, hepatic, renal and immunological problems in laboratory animals and have also been linked to numerous health problems in epidemiological studies in humans, according to the EPA.
The researchers found traces of such chemicals in both mothers and babies, Woodruff said. “This is therefore a very important feature of this, because it shows that this exposure also occurs in the uterus,” Woodruff said.
The umbilical cord, which connects the placenta to the fetus, is the channel through which oxygen and other nutrients move between the mother and the fetus. If a chemical is present in the umbilical cord blood, the fetus is exposed to it, Woodruff said. More research is needed to determine if these specific chemicals also occur in fetal tissues and at what levels; however, previous studies have found that chemicals found in cord blood also occur in fetal tissue, Woodruff said.
Because so little is known about these newly detected chemicals, even where the mothers were exposed to them, it is not clear what the potential health consequences could be, the researchers told WordsSideKick. It should not be a feeling of insecurity, but ‘alarm’, Abrahamsson said. “We are exposed to chemicals about which we have very little information. And these chemicals can have potentially harmful effects on health that we do not know and cannot predict,” he said.
The researchers can determine if these chemicals are present in maternal and umbilical cord blood, but they do not know at what levels, Woodruff said. For this reason, the researchers cannot say whether the chemicals detected are dangerous at the levels at which they occur in mothers and infants.
But that does not necessarily mean there is no cause for concern about the adverse health effects of chemical exposure, Woodruff said. “We already know from other studies that pregnant women are exposed to chemicals, many of them at levels associated with adverse health effects,” such as exposure to phthalates associated with problems with male reproductive development, she said. ‘This [newly detected] chemicals are in addition to chemicals we know have been linked to adverse health outcomes. ‘
In the future, Woodruff plans that the researchers plan to study the toxicities of these newly detected chemicals in the human body and to learn how the chemicals affect different tissues, with the long-term goal of using the information to address adverse health outcomes and diseases. to prevent. The researchers must also confirm the identity of the newly discovered chemicals by comparing them with “mass spectrometry” with “analytical standards” or pure samples of each chemical.
For consumers, the researchers compiled some tips on how to avoid exposure to substances that may be harmful to reproductive health, including cleaning with non-toxic products, using less plastic and canned food.
Originally published on Live Science.