an Endocrine Society Thematic Issue
Read our special collection of journal articles, published in 2020–2021, focused on endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs)! Curation of the collection was guided by Altmetric Attention Scores and Featured Article designations.
In Endocrine Reviews, Padmanabhan and coauthors provide a wide-ranging review of the potential of EDCs to harm health, with an emphasis on adverse pregnancy outcomes: they conclude that “evidence to date points to EDCs directly and indirectly affecting the maternal, placental, and fetal milieu and engaging many intermediaries that can be targeted for intervention and exposure mitigation.” Bhargava et al. contribute an Endocrine Society Scientific Statement on Considering Sex as a Biological Variable in Basic and Clinical Studies: they note the existence of a period of sensitivity to androgens in female primates and rodents that can be an important research tool for assessing the potential impact of EDCs and other agents on brain development.
In Endocrinology, Al-Yasari et al. demonstrate disrupted glucose metabolism in adult offspring of female mice fed alcohol before conception. Although not usually considered alongside EDCs active at much lower concentrations, alcohol disrupts a variety of endocrine systems, and may cause inheritance of increased susceptibility to diabetes. Vom Saal and Vandenberg review 20 years of studies providing “overwhelming evidence of harm” to endocrine systems caused by the common EDC bisphenol A even at low doses, a conclusion that the Food and Drug Administration has refused to acknowledge. Mogus and coauthors provide experimental evidence that propylparaben, used in foods and personal care products, interferes with mammary gland development and gene expression in mice at levels relevant to human exposure. And Wang et al. demonstrate that bisphenol A induces behavioral changes, including increased anxiety, in adult male and female mice exposed in utero.
Writing in Journal of the Endocrine Society, Demeneix and coauthors criticize a published commentary on EDC regulation that favored a threshold-based approach, an approach rejected as scientifically inappropriate by a strong consensus of Endocrine Society members. Hernandez Scudder and colleagues describe research showing that, in rats, prenatal exposure to human-relevant concentrations of the EDC vinclozin and polychlorinated biphenyls, also EDCs, changed gene expression in the brains of the mature animals and impaired their sociosexual preferences.
JCEM has several papers that brought attention to possible harms resulting from EDCs. Jacobson et al. find a significant association between serum concentrations of phthalate metabolites in pregnant women and hormone levels and post-partum depression, worrying in light of the widespread environmental distribution of phthalates. And Ding and colleagues find an association between exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances, which are also widespread EDCs, and early menopause, a risk factor for adverse health outcomes in later life. Lastly, Genco, Anderson-Shaw, and Sargis argue that healthcare is responsible for many EDC exposures through medications and devices; they propose the adoption of communication strategies that would inform patients of the risks.
Published: May 2021
It can be difficult to keep up to date in the rapidly evolving and expanding world of endocrine science. We curate topical collections of research from across our journals, Endocrine Reviews, Endocrinology, Journal of the Endocrine Society, and The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, so that you can easily find and read recent, influential articles on the topics that interest you.
Selection in each Thematic Issue is guided by online metrics, including Altmetric Attention Scores, Featured Article designations, and identification of leading authors and key topics. Each month, we publish a new Thematic Issue online and work to highlight and promote endocrine science in the press, through email, on social media and across other distribution channels.
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