About Nutrition News

Who knew that washing your hands could harm your health and the environment? Thanks to the chemical industry, a hazardous antibacterial compound called triclosan is now an ingredient in many household and personal care products such as soaps, cleaners, cosmetics, clothing, and even children’s toys.

12-8-08

Fetal Exposure to Carcinogens May Lead to Cancer Decades Later

By David Stauth, 541-737-0787

Contact: David Williams, 541-737-3277

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study suggests that exposure of a fetus to common carcinogens during the late stages of pregnancy may be even more harmful than exposure after birth, causing long-lasting genetic damage that could lead to cancer in childhood, young adulthood or even middle age.

The findings, done in experiments with laboratory mice exposed to high levels of a class of carcinogen that’s commonly found in the environment, are consistent with other studies that also point to the particular vulnerability of fetuses to cancer-causing compounds, especially in late stages of gestation.

The results were just published in Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, a professional journal, by researchers from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. The studies were supported by the National Institutes of Health.

“The study of epigenetics and imprinting has shown that exposure to agents during early stages of development can program gene expression, such that susceptibility to disease in later life is impacted,” the authors wrote in the report. “Studies in human populations find high exposures to environmental chemicals associated with . . . birth weight, behavioral endpoints and cancer.” That toxic chemical is . . .

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Lesson of the Week:

Schools in Wisconsin are showing kids the dangers of genetically engineered (GE) junk food with some unique science class experiments. Sister Luigi Frigo repeats the experiment every year in her second grade class in Cudahy. Students feed one group of mice unprocessed whole foods. A second group of mice are given the same junk foods served at most schools. Within a couple of days, the behavior of the second group of mice develop erratic sleeping schedules and become lazy, nervous and even violent. It takes the mice about three weeks on unprocessed foods to return to normal. According to Frigo, the second graders tried to do the experiment again a few months later with the same mice, but the animals have already learned their lesson and refuse to eat the GE food.
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File this under the topic: "This is what it looks like when it's working." We've all heard the word, the term, the metaphor, the (fill-in your own name here), for "GREEN".

It's no surprise that we're seeing certifying agents, programs, standards and organizations popping up everywhere. Nearly every industry is coming up with best practices and standards that inform their policies, procedures and practices.

Each new leap in technology, energy, information or environmental circumstances lead to new learnings, new ways of working and managing information. Here's a sampling of Green certifying organizations for your consideration courtesy of Entrepreneur magazine.

The Los Angeles Times reported that improper serotonin regulation may be involved with SIDS.

Now that we know that mice genetically engineered to overproduce serotonin present the same symptoms as sudden infant death syndrome, researchers are looking at a diagnostic tool to screen children most likely to die of SIDS.

Maybe another approach would be to take a page from that brilliant diagnostician, Dr. Gregory House , and send a team to the homes and test the mattresses that the infants are sleeping on.