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Vanessa Ward

San Francisco Medical Society | The Weight of Evidence - 0 views

  • “leading to neglect of other plausible mechanisms and well-intentioned but potentially ill-founded proposals for reducing obesity rates”
  • Since publication of that review, substantial evidence has emerged that increases the plausibility of one of the alternative mechanisms suggested by Keith et al: disruption of weight regulation by endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in the environment.
  • Concerns about the potential contribution of EDCs to childhood obesity build from two considerations, one out of human biology and the other from animal experiments
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Prior
  • toxicologists were concerned more with weight loss, which was seen as an adverse outcome.
  • Many of these chemicals alter the behavior of specific genes that are involved in determining the number of fat cells (adipocytes) an individual will have as an adult.
  • he list of contaminants implicated by animal studies is substantial, including several estrogenic EDCs such as DES, bisphenol A, soy phytoestrogens
  • Almost no human data are available to test the obesogen hypothesis in people. No epidemiological evidence exists, because the hypothesis is so new
  • One in vitro experiment, however, has demonstrated that exposure to obesogens increases the rate of conversion of human stem cells to adipocytes (Kirchner et al 2010), confirming the validity of the basic mechanism and the relevance of the animal studies to people.
  • That would be a big win for medicine and public health.
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    San Francisco Medical Society discusses the possible relationship between chemical exposure and the obesity epidemic.
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