Rationale for Environmental Hygiene towards global protection of fetuses and young children from adverse lifestyle factors

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Abstract

Background

The regulatory management of chemicals and toxicants in the EU addresses hundreds of different chemicals and health hazards individually, one by one. An issue is that, so far, the possible interactions among chemicals or hazards are not considered as such. Another issue is the anticipated delay of several decades before effective protection of public health by regulatory decisions due to a time consuming process. Prenatal and early postnatal life is highly vulnerable to environmental health hazards with lifelong consequences, and a priority period for reduction of exposure. There are some initiatives regarding recommendations for pregnant women aiming at protection against one or another category of health hazard, however not validated by intervention studies.

Hypothesis

Here, we aim at strengthening the management of exposure to individual health hazards during pregnancy and lactation, with protective measures in a global strategy of Environmental Hygiene. We hypothesize that such a strategy could reduce both the individual effects of harmful agents in complex mixtures and the possible interactions among them. A panel of experts should develop and endorse implementable measures towards a protective behavior. Their application is meant to be preferably as a package of measures in order to maximize protection and minimize interactions in causing adverse effects. Testing our hypothesis requires biomonitoring studies and longitudinal evaluation of health endpoints in the offspring. Favorable effects would legitimate further action towards equal opportunity access to improved environmental health.

Conclusion

Environmental Hygiene is proposed as a global strategy aiming at effective protection of pregnant women, unborn children and infants against lifelong consequences of exposure to combinations of adverse lifestyle factors.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12940-018-0385-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Most cited references 36

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Infant mortality, childhood nutrition, and ischaemic heart disease in England and Wales.

D. J. Barker, C Osmond (1986)

Although the rise in ischaemic heart disease in England and Wales has been associated with increasing prosperity, mortality rates are highest in the least affluent areas. On division of the country into two hundred and twelve local authority areas a strong geographical relation was found between ischaemic heart disease mortality rates in 1968-78 and infant mortality in 1921-25. Of the twenty-four other common causes of death only bronchitis, stomach cancer, and rheumatic heart disease were similarly related to infant mortality. These diseases are associated with poor living conditions and mortality from them is declining. Ischaemic heart disease is strongly correlated with both neonatal and postneonatal mortality. It is suggested that poor nutrition in early life increases susceptibility to the effects of an affluent diet.

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Environmental Chemicals in Pregnant Women in the United States: NHANES 2003–2004

Tracey J. Woodruff, Ami R. Zota, Jackie Schwartz (2011)

Background Exposure to chemicals during fetal development can increase the risk of adverse health effects, and while biomonitoring studies suggest pregnant women are exposed to chemicals, little is known about the extent of multiple chemicals exposures among pregnant women in the United States. Objective We analyzed biomonitoring data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) to characterize both individual and multiple chemical exposures in U.S. pregnant women. Methods We analyzed data for 163 chemical analytes in 12 chemical classes for subsamples of 268 pregnant women from NHANES 2003–2004, a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population. For each chemical analyte, we calculated descriptive statistics. We calculated the number of chemicals detected within the following chemical classes: polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), organochlorine pesticides, and phthalates and across multiple chemical classes. We compared chemical analyte concentrations for pregnant and nonpregnant women using least-squares geometric means, adjusting for demographic and physiological covariates. Results The percentage of pregnant women with detectable levels of an individual chemical ranged from 0 to 100%. Certain polychlorinated biphenyls, organochlorine pesticides, PFCs, phenols, PBDEs, phthalates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and perchlorate were detected in 99–100% of pregnant women. The median number of detected chemicals by chemical class ranged from 4 of 12 PFCs to 9 of 13 phthalates. Across chemical classes, median number ranged from 8 of 17 chemical analytes to 50 of 71 chemical analytes. We found, generally, that levels in pregnant women were similar to or lower than levels in nonpregnant women; adjustment for covariates tended to increase levels in pregnant women compared with nonpregnant women. Conclusions Pregnant women in the U.S. are exposed to multiple chemicals. Further efforts are warranted to understand sources of exposure and implications for policy making.

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Adenocarcinoma of the vagina. Association of maternal stilbestrol therapy with tumor appearance in young women.

A Herbst, H Ulfelder, D Poskanzer (1971)

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Author and article information

Contributors

Jean-Pierre Bourguignon: jpbourguignon@uliege.be

Anne-Simone Parent: asparent@uliege.be

Jos C. S. Kleinjans: j.kleinjans@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Tim S. Nawrot: tim.nawrot@uhasselt.be

Greet Schoeters: greet.schoeters@vito.be

Nicolas Van Larebeke: Nicolas.VanLarebeke@UGent.be

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Environ Health

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Environ Health

Title: Environmental Health

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1476-069X

Publication date (Electronic): 23 April 2018

Publication date PMC-release: 23 April 2018

Publication date Collection: 2018

Volume: 17

Electronic Location Identifier: 42

Affiliations

[1 ]ISNI 0000 0000 8607 6858, GRID grid.411374.4, Pediatric Endocrinology, , CHU Liège, ; 600, rue de Gaillarmont, B-4032 Chênée, Belgium

[2 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0805 7253, GRID grid.4861.b, Neuroendocrinology Unit, GIGA Neurosciences, , University of Liège, ; Quartier Hôpital, Tour 4 - 1er étage, 15 Avenue Hippocrate, B-4000 Liège, Belgium

[3 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0481 6099, GRID grid.5012.6, Department of Toxicogenomics, , Maastricht University, ; Maastricht, The Netherlands

[4 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0604 5662, GRID grid.12155.32, Centre for Environmental Sciences, , Hasselt University, ; Hasselt, Belgium

[5 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0668 7884, GRID grid.5596.f, Centre for Environment and Health, , Leuven University, ; Leuven, Belgium

[6 ]ISNI 0000000120341548, GRID grid.6717.7, Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), ; Mol, Belgium

[7 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0790 3681, GRID grid.5284.b, Department of Biomedical Sciences, , University of Antwerp, ; Antwerp, Belgium

[8 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0728 0170, GRID grid.10825.3e, Department of Environmental Medicine, Institute of Public Health, , University of Southern Denmark, ; Odense, Denmark

[9 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2069 7798, GRID grid.5342.0, Department of Radiotherapy and Experimental Cancerology, , Ghent University, ; Ghent, Belgium

[10 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2290 8069, GRID grid.8767.e, Department of Analytical, Environmental and Geo-Chemistry, , Vrije Universiteit Brussel, ; Brussels, Belgium

Article

Publisher ID: 385

DOI: 10.1186/s12940-018-0385-y

PMC ID: 5914065

PubMed ID: 29685149

SO-VID: 0d7e091e-def2-4715-b733-acc5cd7f5823

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

History

Date received : 29 January 2018

Date accepted : 10 April 2018

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health

Keywords: pregnancy,mutagens,endocrine disrupting chemicals,carcinogens,precautionary principle,public health,developmental origin of health and disease

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health

Keywords: pregnancy, mutagens, endocrine disrupting chemicals, carcinogens, precautionary principle, public health, developmental origin of health and disease

Rationale for Environmental Hygiene towards global protection of fetuses and young children from adverse lifestyle factors

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Abstract

Background

Hypothesis

Conclusion

Electronic supplementary material

Related collections

Chinese Journal of School Health

Most cited references 36

Infant mortality, childhood nutrition, and ischaemic heart disease in England and Wales.

Environmental Chemicals in Pregnant Women in the United States: NHANES 2003–2004

Adenocarcinoma of the vagina. Association of maternal stilbestrol therapy with tumor appearance in young women.

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Contributors

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Article

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