EXHAUSTED GENES: A recent study found that asthma was more common among New York City children exposed in the womb to high levels of a pollutant found in car exhaust.
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Each of us starts life with a particular set of genes, 20,000 to 25,000 of them. Now scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence that pollutants and chemicals might be altering those genes—not by mutating them, but by sending subtle signals that silence them or switch them on at the wrong times.
Last week, several dozen researchers and experts convened by the National Academies tackled this complicated topic, called epigenetics, at a two-day workshop in Washington, D.C. They discussed new findings that suggest chemicals in our environment and in our food can alter genes, leaving people vulnerable to a variety of diseases and disorders, including diabetes, asthma, cancer and obesity. They also considered whether regulatory agencies and industry should start testing the thousands of chemicals in use today for these effects.
“There is little doubt these epigenetic effects are important. The next question is how we test for effects," said William H. Farland, professor of environmental and radiological health sciences at Colorado State University. "We don’t need to abandon current approaches to chemical testing. When testing chemicals in animals, we may just need to add some new endpoints."
Exposure to gene-altering substances, particularly in the womb and shortly after birth, “can lead to increased susceptibility to disease,” said Linda S. Birnbaum, who was named director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and of the National Toxicology Program in December. “The susceptibility persists long after the exposure is gone, even decades later. Glands, organs, and systems can be permanently altered.”
“There is a huge potential impact from these exposures, partly because the changes may be inherited across generations. You may be affected by what your mother and grandmother were exposed to during pregnancy,” Birnbaum said.
What a pregnant mother eats and the chemicals she is exposed to can affect her offspring without causing mutations in the DNA, the experts said. Instead, such exposures can disrupt the way that genes behave, according to both animal and human studies. These changes, in turn, can be passed on to the next generations.
Some environmental chemicals enable methyl groups (carbon atoms with three hydrogen atoms attached) to attack genes, which turns them off or mutes them, at a time when they should be turned on. When genes are turned off, they can’t direct the manufacture of proteins that are essential for proper cell function. Chemicals also can uncoil parts of the chromosome, causing genes to be expressed, or turned on, at inappropriate times.
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7 Comments
Add CommentIt is ironic we live in a scientific age but when asked few chemists understand how the multitude of chemicals tested and developed in a lab will intermix in the real world, producing new and dangerous forms. This has been going on for decades and there's no doubt that we've developed a cultural expectation that if you don't know the cause of your illness it must be genetic or lifestyle based rather than environmental in origin. Until we start opening up our health care and our minds to the environmental links to disease, the denial will continue and the chemical industry lobbyists will prevail over any attempt at objective science. It is a question of who has the will to admit, let alone search for, the connections, and secondly who has the deeper pockets. This idea that life expectancies are on the rise has already been thrown into reverse by sedentary lifestyles, obesity and skyrocketing rates of depression. The average male is less "manly" than he was decades ago. The evidence is staring us in the face for anyone who has the courage to see it and deal with the reality on its own terms. To look at this head on without flinching at the inevitable realization that it is a wonder any of us thrives in the midst of this toxic soup at all is our last, best hope. Remember the study in which it was found that infant cord blood was contaminated with Teflon and over 200 other substances? There was some talk about voluntarily withdrawing Teflon from the market by 2015 but in the meantime the companies are padding their bottom lines by coming up with 100 new ways to add it to household cleaners. As long as the financial conflicts of interest persist, the problem won't get a fair shake. It's time we turn the corner and let the evidence speak for itself for a change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree NewsView. Let's let the evidence speak for itself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf one were to plot the average human lifespan against the number and volume of chemicals manufactured, it would indicate that both are increasing concurrently. Shall we conclude that more chemical manufacturing leads to a longer lifespan? Or shall we conclude that this is likely coincedental, and that any potential negative effect caused by chemical production is negligible in the scheme of things? I could make a case for either possibility. Either way, your skepticism of the chemical industry seems unwarranted.
We could make much greater gains in human health by putting money into things which really will make a difference. Things like exercise, substance abuse prevention, drug development and immunization. Or, are you skeptical of pharmaceuticals and immunization as well?
These studies should have been done years ago and the auto sector needs to be held accountable for many of our problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do we allow products that kill and injure, choke us while walking and keep us on constant alert as well as well make everday life stressful and NOISY??as
NewsView:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with what you say and want to add to it.
The nuclear testing programs of the 1950s have increased background radiation dramatically. Sciam Forensics reported that C14 levels are 900% greater than before. Our bodies use C14 exactly as they would C12, problem is C14 reverts to nitrogen and the tissue it is part of is damaged.
Further microwave communications have increased the radiation levels in this band of the spectrum, it is accepted that these radiations increase tissue temperature. My worry is the dramatic increase in the number of cranial tumours that correspond to this increase.
Soccerdad suggests plotting the average lifespan. This is a trailing indicator of lifespan. I shall not know if my Baby-Boomer generation is going to be the first to have a shorter lifespan than my parents generation. A better test would be to obtain a graph of the median age at death for cities and regions where records are kept.
formaldehyde in FEMA trailers and other sources (aspartame, dark wines and liquors, tobacco smoke): Murray 2008.01.30: BM Kapur -- folic acid protects most people from conversion of methanol into formaldehyde and then formic acid 2009.07.01
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.htm
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1508
The FEMA trailers give about the same amount of formaldehyde
daily as from a quart of dark wine or liquor, or two quarts
(6 12-oz cans) of aspartame diet soda, from their over 1 tenth
gram methanol impurity (one part in 10,000),
which the body quickly makes into formaldehyde -- enough
to be the major cause of "morning after" alcohol hangovers.
Methanol and formaldehyde also result from many fruits and
vegetables, tobacco and wood smoke, heater and vehicle exhaust,
household chemicals and cleaners, cosmetics, and new cars,
drapes, carpets, furniture, particleboard, mobile homes, buildings,
leather ... so all these sources add up and interact with many other
toxic chemicals.
folic acid prevents neurotoxicity from formic acid, made by body from
methanol impurity in alcohol drinks [ also 11 % of aspartame ], BM Kapur, PL
Carlen, DC Lehotay, AC Vandenbroucke, Y Adamchik, U. of Toronto, 2007 Dec.,
Alcoholism Cl. Exp. Res.: Murray 2007.11.27 [ actually, a fairly complete
review of recent developments... ]
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.htm
Wednesday, November 27, 2007
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1495
formaldehyde, aspartame, and migraines, the first case series,
Sharon E Jacob-Soo, Sarah A Stechschulte, UCSD, Dermatitis
2008 May: Rich Murray 2008.07.18
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.htm
Friday, July 18, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1553
Dermatitis. 2008 May-Jun; 19(3): E10-1.
Formaldehyde, aspartame, and migraines: a possible connection.
Jacob SE, Stechschulte S.
Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery,
University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA.
Aspartame is a widely used artificial sweetener that has been
linked to pediatric and adolescent migraines.
Upon ingestion, aspartame is broken, converted, and oxidized into
formaldehyde in various tissues.
We present the first case series of aspartame-associated migraines
related to clinically relevant positive reactions to formaldehyde on
patch testing. PMID: 18627677
Give homo sapien another few thousand years and our genes are so rotten we will become extinct! And we are supposed to be the most evolved of all species...everything is down hill my friend, exactly in line with what the Bible teach; perfect became death and suffering because of mankind's sin. I'm looking forward to the restoration of all things!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is so much evidence on the effect of chemicals on health. The ones that can't be ignored, finally, such as lead and mercury toxicity, are only the beginning of the story. This excellent articles raises the need to test all chemicals, and also discusses in some detail the method of causation of this set of illnesses. Connect the rise of chemical use with the epidemics in autoimmune disease, and you already have a smoking gun. If we were not both addicted and heavily marketed to by parasitic corporations whose income depends on use of poisons for their products, humanity would not tolerate the risks of this way of life.
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