13
Mar
(Beyond Pesticides, March 13, 2014) Part deux of a 2012 study finding that sperm counts in French men had decreased 30% over the past 16 years came to a second startling conclusion in a 2014 analysis: the cause for those dramatic decreases may be pesticides. 2012 Sperm-Count Study Published in the scientific journal Human Reproduction, the landmark 2012 study showed an alarming 30 percent decrease in sperm counts across France between 1989 and 2005. Because the data for the 2012 study were drawn from Fivnat ””a French assisted reproduction technology database”” researches made sure to limit analysis to 26,600 sperm samples from otherwise virile 35-year-old men whose partners’ fallopian tubes were either blocked or missing. This control was added to ensure that the each couple’s infertility was due to these latter problems and not a problem with the man’s sperm. Broken down, the 2012 studies identified a 1.9 percent continued annual dip in sperm concentration and also found that there was a significant 33.4% decrease in the percentage of normally formed sperm over the entire 16-year period. At the time of release, the 2012 study’s authors wrote: “To our knowledge, it is the first study concluding a severe and general […]
Posted in Abamectin, Agriculture, DDT, Endocrine Disruption, International, Reproductive Health | No Comments »
07
Nov
(Beyond Pesticides, November 7, 2013) A study released this week established a strong connection between endometriosis and exposure to two dangerous pesticides: lindane and mirex. While the results are not surprising given past connections between these pesticides and their endocrine-disrupting effects, this new study, Organochlorine Pesticides and Risk of Endometriosis: Findings from a Population-Based Case-Control Study, is one of the first to examine the association between organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and endometriosis, one of the most common gynecological diseases, in women in the general population. The study’s authors, Kristen Upson, Ph.D. et al,  explained to Environmental Health Perspectives, “Our study suggests that exposure from extensive past use of environmentally persistent OCPs in the United States, or present use in other countries may impact the health of the current generation of reproductive-age women with regard to a hormonally-mediated disease.” In conducting the study, researchers selected a group of women with surgically-confirmed cases of endometriosis from the greater Pacific Northwest area. This group of women was then divided into four groups, based on the level of pesticide in each woman’s blood. Women in the second-highest exposure group for beta-hexacyclochlorohexane (beta-HCH), a byproduct of lindane, had a 70 percent greater risk of endometriosis than […]
Posted in Chemicals, Disease/Health Effects, Endocrine Disruption, Lindane, Reproductive Health | 1 Comment »
01
Aug
(Beyond Pesticides, August 1, 2012) New research is adding to the evidence that some pesticides and industrial chemicals may increase women’s risk of uterine and ovarian diseases, such as endometriosis. The research supports the decades old theory that hormone-mimicking chemicals impact human reproductive systems. Scientists have long suspected a link between estrogen-mimicking pollutants and gynecological diseases. According to Environmental Health News, research investigating a link between hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment and gynecological diseases has had mixed results. But a new study, “Persistent Lipophilic Environmental Chemicals and Endometriosis: The ENDO Study,” from researchers at the National Institutes of Health and others, found that two groups of women in the Salt Lake City and San Francisco areas — one group with pelvic pain and the other with no symptoms — were more likely to be diagnosed with endometriosis if they had high blood levels of the estrogen-like pesticide hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) than women with low levels. HCH, a persistent organic pollutant (POP), and a byproduct of the production of the insecticide lindane (head lice treatments), has been banned as a crop pesticide in the United States but it persists in the environment and remains in some food supplies. Endometriosis is a female […]
Posted in Chemicals, Disease/Health Effects, Infertility, Lindane, Reproductive Health | No Comments »
29
Nov
(Beyond Pesticides, November 29, 2011) New research shows that women who drink water containing the widely used herbicide atrazine may be more likely to have irregular menstrual cycles and low estrogen levels, even at concentrations far below federal drinking water standards considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Researchers compared women living in Illinois farm towns where atrazine is used regularly to women living in Vermont where the herbicide is used sparingly, and found that the women in Illinois were almost five times more likely to report irregular menstrual cycles, including more than six weeks between periods. Consumption of over two cups of unfiltered Illinois water daily was associated with increased risk of irregular periods. The study, entitled “Menstrual cycle characteristics and reproductive hormone levels in women exposed to atrazine in drinking water,” was published in the journal Environmental Research earlier this month, and is based on municipal tap water tested between July and September of 2005. In the study, participants maintained menstrual cycle diaries, answered a questionnaire, and provided daily urine samples for analyses of luteinizing hormone and estradiol and progesterone metabolites. To measure exposure, analysts looked at the state of residence, concentrations of atrazine and chlorotriazine […]
Posted in Atrazine, Illinois, Reproductive Health, Vermont | No Comments »
28
Mar
(Beyond Pesticides, March 28 2011) Researchers found that exposure to organochlorine pesticides significantly alters semen quality in young men from southeast Spain. The study found 18 pesticides in the blood of the study participants, including some banned in Spain, such as DDT, and others legal in in the country, such as the fungicide vinclozolin. The analysis was conducted by Clemente Aguilar from the Medical Research Laboratory of the University Hospital San Cecilio, Granada, Spain, and coordinated by Marieta Fernández, Marina Lacasaña and Nicolás Olea (University of Granada), basing on a sample of 280 volunteer students aged 18-23 years from the University of AlmerĂa, Spain. All the study participants had at least one pesticide in considerable concentrations. The average number of pesticides detected in the blood tests was 11. Southeast Spain is a region where two out of ten young men have poor sperm density. Even though exposure to some organochlorines proved to increase total spermatic number and total sperm motility levels, other pesticides were highly associated with a reduction in sperm levels. This might be due to the fact that some of these pesticides are considered to be estrogenic endocrine disruptors. Endocrine disruptors are substances that interfere with natural hormones […]
Posted in International, Reproductive Health | No Comments »
