I've presented on this topic for different groups because it is critical to educate the public about pesticide exposures and all of the health ramifications.
This is nothing new to the environmentally-minded. A recent Spanish study highlighted the fact that when pregnant women are exposed to endocrine-disrupting pesticides, organochlorines, their children are at increased risk to be overweight by age 7. The study looked at individual chemicals and the combination of them.
There are 27 suspected endocrine-disrupting chemicals that affect children's weight.
We see younger and younger children who are obese. Go to your local Mall, sit for 5 minutes on the weekend and you will see obese children who have mobility issues, sexual differentiation issues and usually they will have a pretzel, doughnut and or soda in hand as they are throwing a tantrum. If you go tantrum spotting know that irritability, defiance and oppositional behavior parallels what goes into the mouth.
I see young boys with massive breast tissue as in the image above. They have gynecomastia before puberty. Weight has always been intimately linked to self-esteem in our culture. I had one 11 year old male patient who cried during his intake. Sobbing he said, "I don't want to be fat. I want to be able to run again."
The leading chemicals are:
- Hexachlorobenzene
- beta-Hexachlorocyclohexane
- Polychlorinated biphenyl
- PCB
- Dichlordiphenyldichloroethylene
