Household chemicals 'cause infertility in women'
Chemicals used in everyday items such as food packaging and clothing strongly linked to infertility in women
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Thursday, 29, Jan 2009 08:52
Chemicals widely used in everyday items such as food packaging, clothing and personal care products may reduce a woman's chance of becoming pregnant.
Research by American scientists links exposure to perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), also found in pesticides, upholstery and carpets to infertility in women.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) study found that women with high levels of perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), both PFCs, were up to 154 per cent more likely to be infertile.
Researchers arrived at their findings by using the Danish national birth cohort, which featured details of 1,240 women.
Blood samples were taken at the time of the women's first antenatal visit (between four-14 weeks into the pregnancy) so that concentrations of PFOS and PFOA could be measured.
The researchers also interviewed women at around the 12th week of pregnancy to find out whether the pregnancy was planned or not and how long it took them to become pregnant.
"PFOS and PFOA were considered to be biologically inactive, but recently animal studies have shown that these chemicals may have a variety of toxic effects on the liver, immune system and developmental and reproductive organs," said study Dr Chunyuan Fei of UCLA.
"Very few human studies have been done, but one of our earlier studies showed that PFOA, although not PFOS, may impair the growth of babies in the womb, and another two epidemiological studies linked PFOA and PFOS to impaired foetal growth."
Professor Jorn Olsen, chair of the department of epidemiology at UCLA, added: "As far as we know, this is the first study to assess the associations between PFOA and PFOS levels in plasma with time to pregnancy in humans. We are waiting for further studies to replicate our findings in order to discover whether PFCs should be added to the list of risk factors for infertility."
PFCs, the class of chemicals to which PFOS and PFOA belong, are found not only in household goods but are also used in manufacturing processes, for instance for industrial surfactants and emulsifiers. They persist in the environment and in the body for decades.
The researchers believe that although they measured the PFOS/PFOA levels after pregnancy was established, these levels probably did not change significantly from the time before pregnancy.
Men's sperm quality could also be affected by PFCs and might, therefore, contribute to the associations between PFC levels and time to pregnancy, since couples would tend to be sharing the same lifestyles and have similar exposures.