Abstract
Some articles have examined perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) exposure in early life in relation to risk of childhood adiposity. Nevertheless, the results from epidemiological studies exploring the associations remain inconsistent and contradictory. We thus conducted an analysis of data currently available to examine the association between PFOA exposure in early life and risk of childhood adiposity. The PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases were searched to identify studies that examined the impact of PFOA exposure in early life on childhood adiposity. A random-effects meta-analysis model was used to pool the statistical estimates. We identified ten prospective cohort studies comprising 6076 participants with PFOA exposure. The overall effect size (relative risk or odds ratio) for childhood overweight was 1.25 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.04, 1.50; I2 = 40.5%). In addition, exposure to PFOA in early life increased the z-score of childhood body mass index (β = 0.10, 95% CI: 0.03, 0.17; I2 = 27.9%). Accordingly, exposure to PFOA in early life is associated with an increased risk for childhood adiposity. Further research is needed to verify these findings and to shed light on the molecular mechanism of PFOA in adiposity.
Highlights
The prevalence of obesity has increased worldwide over the past four decades, and is a global health issue, with over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5–19 being overweight or obese in 2016 [1]
Hand searching the reference lists of the 9 included articles identified 1 additional study, resulting in a total of 10 articles involving 6076 participants that were retained for quantitative synthesis in the meta-analysis [9,18,19,26,27,28,29,30,31,32]
Some experimental results have demonstrated that perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) may activate peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) α or γ, which act as master lipid regulators to modify lipid homeostasis [38,39]
Summary
The prevalence of obesity has increased worldwide over the past four decades, and is a global health issue, with over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5–19 being overweight or obese in 2016 [1]. Overweight or obesity in children is more likely to persist into adulthood and further increases the likelihood of many health problems in later life, including obesity, cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease [2,3]. Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are a class of synthetic and highly stable compounds that are widely applied in protective coatings of food, textiles, furniture, and nonstick cookware [5,6,7]. They are known to act as endocrine disruptors [8], and early-life exposure is linked to the development of obesity [9]. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is a typical member of the family of PFASs, which has unique and useful chemical properties including surface activity, thermal and acid resistance, and amphiphilic properties, and it has seen widespread use worldwide throughout the environment [10]
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