07
Nov
Prenatal and Early Childhood Exposure to Pesticides Linked to Metabolic Disorders in Males
(Beyond Pesticides, November 7, 2025) There is little dispute that modern industrial culture has produced a constellation of related chronic conditions contributing powerfully to human disease. In recent decades, attention has begun to focus on the developmental origins of health and disease—prenatal exposures to pesticides, for example, that contribute to diseases in adulthood, such as cardiovascular and metabolic problems, along with the combination, known as cardiometabolic syndrome. Cardiometabolic disorders include obesity, hypertension, cholesterol imbalances, and insulin resistance. The usual suspects blamed for the syndrome are poor diet, physical inactivity, and genetic predisposition. These are all well-established risk factors, but they fail to fully account for the sharp rise in cardiometabolic syndrome globally. Obesity prevalence has doubled and diabetes quadrupled over the last 40 years, according to the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) Risk Factor Collaboration.
In a study on early life exposure to a pesticide mixture, researchers analyze sex differences in cardiometabolic outcomes from prenatal and early life. The study was conducted by an international team of scientists led by Ana M. Mora, M.D., of the Center for Environmental Research and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, using data from the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) cohort—a long-term project covering more than 20 years and 300,000 biological samples of Latino mothers and children in an agricultural community.
Their findings include a clear association between metabolic disorders and exposure to pesticide mixtures—for young men, but not for young women. The primary anomaly for young women was higher levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) associated with pesticide exposures. Of this finding, the authors stress that further research is necessary, as its explanation is not obvious from their data. While high HDL is often considered protective against heart disease, it is not always healthy.
Pesticides have been strongly linked to factors involved in cardiometabolic syndrome in previous studies. For example, see Beyond Pesticides’ February 27, 2024, news brief analyzing a Chinese study linking pesticide exposure to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic disease in seniors. The news brief of September 27, 2023, analyzes a review of insulin-related metabolic disorders and exposure to organophosphates, organochlorines, and pyrethroid pesticides. Links were found with obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease. Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases: Diabetes resource covers many other studies linking metabolic disorders with pesticide exposures.
In the current study, the researchers studied a sample of the CHAMACOS cohort comprising 505 children prenatally exposed and 381 postnatally exposed to pesticides who had reached the age of 18. They defined metabolic syndrome as having blood pressure higher than 130/85, waist circumference over 40 inches for males and 35 inches for females, fasting glucose over 100 mg/dL, and triglycerides over 150 mg/dL. Low HDL was defined as under 40 mg/dL for males or 50 mg/dL for females. All the participants had at least one of these cardiometabolic measures at age 18.
Although the CHAMACOS data include biomarkers of pesticides, the authors did not use them to estimate pesticide exposures because the biomarkers most commonly measured and used to infer exposures to organophosphate, organochlorine, and pyrethroid pesticides are not sensitive enough to identify specific compounds. Further, few cardiometabolic studies have included newer pesticides such as the weed killer glyphosate and neonicotinoid insecticides. Therefore, the authors explain, the current study used participants’ residential histories because these could be geocoded to estimate pesticide exposures using California Pesticide Use Reporting data. They gathered all the addresses where each participant had lived during the study period and estimated pesticide use within 1 kilometer of each residence. This distance is strongly correlated with pesticide levels in house dust.
Based on quantities applied, the researchers identified a subset of the California Pesticide Use Report (PUR) data comprising 11 pesticides for both prenatal and postnatal analysis (acephate, chlorpyrifos, diazinon, malathion, oxidemeton-methyl, dimethoate, methomyl, permethrin, neonicotinoid insecticides, manganese-containing fungicides such as maneb, and glyphosate) with the addition of naled in the postnatal group.
They analyzed the relative contributions of the 11 individual pesticides to mixture exposures, and which pesticide combinations were correlated with cardiometabolic indicators in males and females. The results of exposure to mixtures were quite different between males and females. For females, higher prenatal exposure was associated with higher HDL levels, and the pesticides contributing most to the mixture effect were glyphosate, neonicotinoids, and acephate. There was no such association among prenatally-exposed males. For them, higher prenatal exposure was associated with a higher likelihood of metabolic syndrome, and the bad actors here were glyphosate and the insecticides malathion and permethrin. For males, higher postnatal exposures to glyphosate, malathion, and naled also increased the risk of metabolic syndrome. There was no postnatal association with metabolic syndrome for females.
The authors write that, “Hormonal influences and sex-specific differences in detoxification and metabolic regulation during critical developmental windows may contribute to these divergent effects.” Other research has produced strong evidence that endocrine-disrupting chemicals affect “prenatal growth, thyroid function, glucose metabolism, obesity, puberty, and fertility through several mechanisms,” according to a 2022 review.
Yet the differences in effects by sex and developmental stage have barely been explored. See Beyond Pesticides’ August 7, 2024, news brief analyzing an intriguing study of French children’s hair samples. In that study, sex-specific differences were found for 26 biomarkers of pesticides, most of which were endocrine disruptors. Fifteen biomarkers showed significantly higher levels in males compared to females. Interestingly, for pyrethroid insecticides, boys’ hair samples contained predominantly metabolites, while the girls’ hair contained more of the parent compounds.
The mechanisms and health implications of this difference are unclear. Pyrethroid insecticides are known endocrine disrupters; one study found higher pyrethroid exposure was associated with obesity in females but not males; but, pyrethroids have also been linked to high prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels and higher risk of prostate cancer. Exposure to endocrine disruptors also clearly affects testicular function and sperm counts.
Just how the timing of pesticide exposures during development affects males and females differently needs far more attention, but there is sufficient evidence of early endocrine disruption affecting not only reproductive health but cardiometabolic status in adulthood to enact protective policies for the earliest, and most critical, developmental stages.
Public health advocates maintain that no one should be condemned to preventable chronic and life-threatening health conditions initiated before they were born, least of all the people who grow everyone’s food. One way to reduce the risk factors for cardiometabolic syndrome is to eat organic as much as possible. A 2021 study of seniors in the European Journal of Nutrition found organic food correlated with smaller waist circumference, blood pressure, blood glucose, and HDL, but these findings did not persist after adjusting for confounding factors. However, a 2024 review in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found “[a] significant inverse relationship between organic food consumption and cardiometabolic risk factors, including obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.” That is, eating organic reduces the risk of cardiometabolic syndrome.
This choice should be extended to the people who live and work in agricultural areas. Nearly half of the mothers and children in the current study are living below the poverty line, and many reported marginal food security. Access to organic food could help mitigate the risks from proximity to pesticide applications. Even better would be the conversion of all agriculture to organic, eliminating the workers’ environmental exposures. Ensuring that the communities that grow everyone’s food have access to the healthiest choices for themselves should be a high policy priority.
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Sources:
Sex-Specific Associations of Early Life Exposure to the Pesticide Mixture with Cardiometabolic Outcomes in CHAMACOS Young Adults
Cheng-Yang Hu, Ana M. Mora,* Robert B. Gunier, Stephen Rauch, Katherine Kogut, Jill K. Gregory,
Ayca Erkin-Cakmak, Brenda Eskenazi, and Maria José Rosa
Environmental Science & Technology October 2025
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5c06486
Over 60 Biomarkers of Pollutants and Pesticides Found in Hair Analyses of French Children
Beyond Pesticides, August 7, 2024
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2024/08/over-60-biomarkers-of-pollutants-and-pesticides-found-in-hair-analyses-of-french-children/
Pesticide Exposure Linked to Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and Metabolic Disease in Seniors
Beyond Pesticides, February 27, 2024
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2024/02/pesticide-exposure-linked-to-obesity-type-2-diabetes-and-metabolic-disease-in-seniors/
Metabolic Diseases, Including Diabetes and Obesity, Driven by Pesticide Exposure
Beyond Pesticides, September 27, 2023
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2023/09/metabolic-diseases-including-diabetes-and-obesity-driven-by-pesticide-exposure/
Pesticides’ Role in Lower Sperm Counts and Reproductive Harm in Men Again in Science Literature
Beyond Pesticides, January 10, 2024
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2024/01/pesticides-role-in-lower-sperm-counts-and-reproductive-harm-in-men-again-in-science-literature/
