Login
The Flint water crisis 10 years later
The Effects of the Flint water crisis on the educational outcomes of school-age children; Science Advances, March 13, 2024.
Lead exposure from the 2014 Flint, Michigan, water crisis had multiyear effects, particularly on schoolchildren, according to Princeton University and University of Michigan researchers.
The general population reported greater anxiety, depression, sleep problems and concerns over physical health, plus increased alcohol and drug use.
Children experienced progressively lower reading scores and absenteeism during the 2014-2018 timeframe. Both values appeared to begin recovering but were still well below baseline in 2019.
Deficits in math achievement and increases in special needs classification, however, persisted until at least 2019, even for children living in homes without lead plumbing.
Poorer and younger students experienced the largest math deficits, and boys experienced the most special needs classifications.
Lead exposure may cause as many as 5.5 million heart disease deaths per year worldwide and may be responsible for a nearly six-point IQ deficit in kids. The global economic burden of lead exposure may be as high as $2.4 trillion per year.
PAH air pollution effects persist for years
Prenatal polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon exposure and asthma at age 8–9 years in a multi-site longitudinal study; Environmental Health, March 8, 2024.
Scientists at the University of Washington concluded that asthma associated with prenatal exposure to chemicals released during the burning of coal, oil and gas persisted into childhood, but eventually disappeared.
Given the association between prenatal polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure and asthma in preschoolers, U.S. researchers were interested in how long this effect lasted.
PAHs are a class of chemicals that occur naturally in coal, crude oil and gasoline, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They result from burning coal, oil, gas, wood, garbage and tobacco.
The researchers quantified prenatal exposure to PAHs by measuring PAH breakdown products in the urine of 1,081 pregnant women recruited from four different large, ongoing childhood development studies.
When the children were 8-9 years old, the mothers answered questions about their child’s asthma symptoms. By this age, 10% of children had developed asthma.
PAH breakdown occurs in humans through a series of steps in which the PAH chemical is made increasingly water-soluble to facilitate its elimination through urine and feces.
In boys, researchers found a weak association between asthma symptoms and a PAH breakdown product that was hardly changed from the original molecule. For girls, asthma was associated with another, more highly metabolized PAH breakdown product.
This study points to difficulties in conducting multiyear analyses on subjects recruited from multiple studies.
Once researchers corrected their results for maternal age, education, race, ethnicity, birth season, household income, family size, neighborhood deprivation, pre- and postnatal exposure to tobacco smoke, maternal asthma and firstborn status, the anticipated effect — that PAH-induced asthma persisted into childhood — disappeared.
Study strengthens link between pesticides and Parkinson’s disease
Application of simazine, atrazine, and lindane pesticides are associated with incident Parkinson’s disease risk in the Rocky Mountain region; American Academy of Neurology 76th Annual Meeting Abstract; Feb. 27, 2024.
U.S. researchers linked 14 pesticides used in the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains regions with an increase in diagnoses of Parkinson’s disease.
The study looked for connections between three diverse data sets: approximately 21.5 million Medicare recipients, 465 pesticides and their geographic distribution, and Parkinson’s diagnoses.
Of the 65 pesticides with sufficient usage data, the study found 14 with a strong association. Of these, simazine, atrazine and lindane had the strongest relationship.
The study also found a dose-response relationship for all three pesticides, meaning the greater the exposure the higher the risk.
Counties with the highest exposure levels had a 36% higher risk of Parkinson’s compared with counties with the lowest exposure. Increased risk for atrazine and lindane exposures were 31% and 25%, respectively.
The pesticide-Parkinson’s association has been known for some time. Pesticide exposure has also been linked to cancer in children and adults, reproductive and developmental issues and multiple other health risks.
Air pollutants will find you, even in the womb
The association of in-utero exposure to air pollution and atherogenic index of plasma in newborns; Environmental Health, Feb. 19, 2024.
Iranian researchers reported that prenatal exposure to particulate matter air pollution raises cholesterol and triglycerides, two adverse heart health signals, in newborns.
The study involved first measuring cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood of 300 newborns. Then, based on where the babies’ mothers lived and vehicle traffic on their streets, they estimated maternal exposure to three particulate matter types: PM1, PM2.5 and PM10, where the number refers to the particle size in micrometers or millionths of a meter.
Particulate matter comes in many sizes and shapes and may contain almost any chemical or material.
Higher maternal exposure to PM2.5 during pregnancy was significantly associated with higher cholesterol/triglyceride levels in cord blood, and each increase in exposure resulted in higher negative heart health signs.
Exposure to PM1 and PM10 also raised them but not significantly.
Auto exhaust is the main source of PM2.5 particles, which are about 1/30th the size of a human hair.
Environmental exposure-related asthma down, but not out
Global patterns of asthma burden related to environmental risk factors during 1990–2019: an age-period-cohort analysis for global burden of disease study 2019; Environmental Health, Feb. 15, 2024.
Chinese researchers reported that global asthma deaths fell sharply between 1990 and 2019, but remain high.
Drawing on data from the 2019 Global Burden of Disease study, they found that smoking-related asthma deaths fell 62% (from 1.81 to 0.68 deaths per 100,000 population) and asthmagens-related deaths fell 55% (from 0.92 to 0.41 per 100,000 population). Worldwide declines were greatest among men.
Asthmagens are chemicals in the environment or workplace that have been associated with asthma.
Disability-adjusted life years, a measure of years lost to death or disability due to any cause, also fell during the study period, with those caused by smoking-related asthma falling by 60% and the asthmagens contribution declining by 46%.
The highest disease and death burdens were borne by countries of “low-middle” socioeconomic status.
The researchers concluded that despite sharp drops, regional and sex disparities remain. They urged policymakers from low socioeconomic regions to “reinforce tobacco control and prioritize workplace protection.”
