A new study led by Mount Sinai researchers in collaboration with scientists from Cornell University and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has found higher prenatal exposure to phthalates—manmade chemicals that interfere with hormonal messaging—to be connected with disruptive and problem behaviors in children between the ages of 4 and 9 years. The study, which is the first to examine the effects of prenatal phthalate exposure on child neurobehavioral development, will be published January 28, on the Environmental Health Perspectives website.

“There is increasing evidence that phthalate exposure is harmful to children at all stages of development,” said Stephanie Engel, PhD, lead study author and Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “We found a striking pattern of associations between low molecular weight phthalates – which are commonly found in personal care products – and disruptive childhood behaviors, such as aggressiveness and other conduct issues, and problems with attention. These same behavioral problems are commonly found in children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or Conduct Disorder.”

Phthalates are part of a group of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors, that interfere with the body’s endocrine, or hormone system. They are a family of compounds found in a wide range of consumer products such as nail polishes, to increase their durability and reduce chips, and in cosmetics, perfumes, lotions and shampoos, to carry fragrance. Other phthalates are used to increase the flexibility and durability of plastics such as PVC, or included as coatings on medications or nutritional supplements to make them timed-release.

“Recently, the government instituted regulations limiting certain phthalates in things like child care articles or toys that a young child might put in their mouth,” continued Dr. Engel. “But it’s their mother’s contact with phthalate-containing products that causes prenatal exposure. The phthalates that we found most strongly related to neurodevelopment were those commonly found in cosmetics, perfumes, lotions and shampoos. Current US regulations do not address these kinds of phthalates.”

For the study, phthalate metabolite levels were analyzed in prenatal urine samples of a multiethnic group of 404 women who were pregnant for the first time. The women were invited to participate in follow-up interviews when their children were between the ages of 4 and 9. The mothers were not informed of their phthalate metabolite levels and the researchers were unaware of their exposures when testing the children.

Follow-up visits were completed by 188 of the women and their children. At each follow-up visit, the mothers completed validated questionnaires designed to assess their behavior and executive functions. The researchers found that mothers with higher concentrations of low molecular weight phthalates consistently reported poorer behavioral profiles in their children. The strongest trends were in the categories of conduct and externalizing problems, characteristics typically associated with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder and ADHD.

“These are high level, chronic exposures that start before the child is even born, but continue throughout their life. More research is needed to examine the effects of cumulative exposure to phthalates on child development. But what this study suggests is that it’s not enough to regulate childhood exposure to these chemicals. The regulations need to include products that moms use,” said Dr. Engel.

Reference: The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Mount Sinai finds prenatal exposure to certain chemicals affects childhood neurodevelopment, Jan. 28, 2010

Are phthalates really safe for children? 

Phthalates are important components of many consumer products, including toys, cleaning materials, plastics, and personal care items. Studies to date on phthalates have been inconsistent, with some linking exposure to these chemicals to hormone disruptions, birth defects, asthma, and reproductive problems, while others have found no significant association between exposure and adverse effects. 

A new report by Korean scientists, published by Elsevier in the November 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry, adds to the potentially alarming findings about phthalates. They measured urine phthalate concentrations and evaluated symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) using teacher-reported symptoms and computerized tests that measured attention and impulsivity. 

They found a significant positive association between phthalate exposure and ADHD, meaning that the higher the concentration of phthalate metabolites in the urine, the worse the ADHD symptoms and/or test scores. 

Senior author Yun-Chul Hong, MD, PhD, explained that “these data represent the first documented association between phthalate exposure and ADHD symptoms in school-aged children.” John Krystal, MD, the Editor of Biological Psychiatry, also commented: “This emerging link between phthalates and symptoms of ADHD raises the concern that accidental environmental exposure to phthalates may be contributing to behavioral and cognitive problems in children. This concern calls for more definitive research.” 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the Summary of their 2005 Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals, state that “very limited scientific information is available on potential human health effects of phthalates at levels” found in the U.S. population. Although this study was performed in a Korean population, their levels of exposure are likely comparable to a U.S. population.

The current findings do not prove that phthalate exposure caused ADHD symptoms. However, these initial findings provide a rationale for further research on this association. 

Reference: Elsevier, Common plastics chemicals linked to ADHD symptoms, November 19, 2009

As we watched each of our five grandchildren and their friends enter this world and begin their life’s journey, it became more and more clear that something is amiss with this generation.  How are your children and your friend’s children doing?

In the United States, one of three of the children in this generation suffers from a chronic illness.  Perhaps it’s cancer, or birth defects, perhaps asthma, or a problem that affects the child’s mind and behavior, such as Downs Syndrome, learning disorders, ADHD or autism.  Though one in three may sound exaggerated, unbelievable, the figures are there amidst various government files.

This generation is different.  Childhood cancer, once a medical rarity, has grown 67 percent since 1950.  Asthma has increased 140 percent in the last twenty years and autism rates without a doubt have increased at least 200 percent.  Miscarriages and premature births are also on the rise, while the ratio of male babies dwindles and girls face endometriosis even in teenage.

The generations born from 1970 on are the first to be raised in a truly toxified world.  Even before conception and on into adulthood, the assault is everywhere: heavy metals and carcinogenic particles in air pollution; industrial solvents, household detergents, prozac and radioactive wastes in drinking water; pesticides in flea collars; artificial growth hormones in beef, arsenic in chicken; synthetic hormones in bottles, teething rings and medical devices; formaldehyde in cribs and nail polish, and even rocket fuel in lettuce.   Pacifiers are now manufactured with nanoparticles from silver, to be sold as “antibacterial.”  What’s wrong with rinsing a pacifier in soapy water?

Despite naysayers (who pays them to say nay? ”that’s a whole story in itself), it’s clear there is both an association and a causative connection between the vast explosion of poisons in our everyday lives and our children’s “issues.”  Over 80,000 industrial chemicals (tested only by the manufacturer) are in commerce in this country, produced or imported at 15 trillion pounds a year.   Pesticide use has leapt from the troubling 400 million pounds Rachel Carson wrote about in the 1960s to the mind-boggling 4.4 billion pounds in use today.   Nuclear power plants, aging and under-maintained, increasingly leak wastes, often without notifying their community.

What could be more elemental than our desire to protect our children.  Children and fetuses, because of their undeveloped defense systems, are ten to sixty-five times more susceptible to specific toxics than adults.  These toxics diminish the capacities of our children…the future of our families, our communities, our nation, and yours.

Illness does not necessarily show up in childhood.  Environmental exposures, from conception to early life, can set a person´s cellular code for life and can cause disease at any time, through old age. This accounts for the rise in Parkinson´s and Alzheimer´s diseases, prostate and breast cancer.

Yet this is not the dispiriting “Bad News” it might seem.  It is, actually, a message of hope and optimism.  We are fearful only when we are ignorant and powerless.  Now that we know what is happening, we can determine not to let it happen further.

These poisons are manmade; manufacturers can take them out of our children´s lives and make profits from safe products.  “Green chemistry” can replace toxic molecules with harmless ones.  We can connect global climate change actions to environmental health strategies.  If we replace coal-fired power, in the process we reduce not only carbon but also emissions of the tons of lead, mercury, hydrochloric acid, chromium, arsenic, sulfur and nitrogen oxides that cause autism, Alzheimer’s and other public health menaces.

We cannot bury our heads and hope it will all go away.  We cannot leave the job to someone else.  Some may feel the problem is so massive, it’s best to pretend it doesn’t exist.  But it isn’t more massive than we allow it to be.  It’s totally within our reach.

Here America, we look to Europe for ideas and strategies you have used, for the research coming out of your universities, for an understanding of the politics that enable your governments to pass strong environmental health laws.  The weed killer named atrazine in the U.S., made by Syngenta, a Swiss company, has never been approved for use in Europe.  But in the U.S., it is used on tens of millions of acres of farmland, on our lawns, gardens, parks, and golf courses.   Why?  And why has Europe begun screening chemicals under the REACH program, while industry in the U.S. has successfully opposed it?

Learning from each other, we can make each other smarter and stronger.  It is in our power to learn about what harms our children, to share our knowledge, and to demand action.

Author: Alice Shabecoff for CSN – Chemical Sensitivity Network, September 14, 2009

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Alice Shabecoff is the co-author with her husband Philip of Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on our Children, published by Random House last year.  See their website, www.poisonedprofits.com.

The authors investigated the association of early-life exposure to indoor air pollution with neuropsychological development in preschoolers and assessed whether this association differs by glutathione-S-transferase gene (GSTP1) polymorphisms. A prospective, population-based birth cohort was set up in Menorca, Spain, in 1997-1999 (n = 482).

Children were assessed for cognitive functioning (McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities) and attention-hyperactivity behaviors (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition) at age 4 years.

During the first 3 months of life, information about gas appliances at home and indoor nitrogen dioxide concentration was collected at each participant’s home (n = 398, 83%). Genotyping was conducted for the GSTP1 coding variant Ile105Val. Use of gas appliances was inversely associated with cognitive outcomes (beta coefficient for general cognition = -5.10, 95% confidence interval (CI): -9.92, -0.28; odds ratio for inattention symptoms = 3.59, 95% CI: 1.14, 11.33), independent of social class and other confounders.

Nitrogen dioxide concentrations were associated with cognitive function (a decrease of 0.27 point per 1 ppb, 95% CI: -0.48, -0.07) and inattention symptoms (odds ratio = 1.06, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.12).

The deleterious effect of indoor pollution from gas appliances on neuropsychological outcomes was stronger in children with the GSTP1 Val-105 allele. Early-life exposure to air pollution from indoor gas appliances may be negatively associated with neuropsychological development through the first 4 years of life, particularly among genetically susceptible children.

Reference: Morales E, Julvez J, Torrent M, de Cid R, Guxens M, Bustamante M, Künzli N, Sunyer J., Association of early-life exposure to household gas appliances and indoor nitrogen dioxide with cognition and attention behavior in preschoolers, Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, Am J Epidemiol. 2009 Jun 1;169(11):1327-36.