As I said before... when we stop our environmental problems we've save our health problemsThe worldwide obesity epidemic is usually blamed on overeating and under exercising. But limited evidence has suggested a few environmental contaminants may also be playing a role. Now some of the first detailed evidence implicating organotins, a class of persistent compounds containing at least one tin–carbon bond, has been published in the September 2006 Molecular Endocrinology. A team of U.S. and Japanese researchers found both in vitro and in vivo evidence that exposure to a number of organotins, at concentrations typically found in people and wildlife, can contribute to alterations in pathways known to play a key role in excess weight gain, and can lead to significant aberrations in fat cells in mice and frogs.
The percentage Americans who are overweight and obese has been rising sharply in the past 30 years or so. Excess weight is strongly linked with many serious health problems, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and some cancers. Prevention of obesity is by far the best available treatment. Preventing exposures to environmental contaminants over the course of a lifetime, even prior to conception, may be an important part of the battle, if this and other recent papers hold up to scrutiny.
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