Abstract
Cohorts comprising fishermen's families on the east coast of Sweden have been found to have a high consumption of contaminated fish as well as high body burdens of persistent organochlorine pollutants (POPs). Their west coast correspondents are socio-economically similar, but with considerably lower POP exposure since the fish caught on the west coast is far less contaminated. The rationale for this was that the cohorts residing on the east coast of Sweden have been found to have a high consumption of contaminated fish as well as high body burdens of POPs, whereas their west coast correspondents are socio-economically similar, but with considerably lower POP exposure since the fish caught on the west coast is far less contaminated. Among the reproductive outcomes investigated are included both male and female parameters, as well as couple fertility and effects on the fetus. A range of exposure measures, including both questionnaire assessments of fish consumption and biomarkers, have been used.The most consistent findings of the studies are those related to the fetus, where a decreased birth weight was found across all measures of exposure, which is in agreement with studies from other populations. Some markers for male reproduction function, i.e. sperm motility, sperm chromatin integrity, and Y:X chromosome ratio, were associated with POP exposure, whereas others, such as sperm concentration and semen volume, were not. With respect to couple fertility and female reproductive parameters, no support was given for associations with POP exposure. Although some associations may have been affected by beneficial effects of essential nutrients in seafood, the overall findings are meaningful in the context of reproductive toxicity and support the usefulness of the epidemiological design.
Highlights
Concerns regarding health effects of persistent organochlorine pollutants (POPs) were first expressed in the 1960's when exposed animals were found to be affected, and exhibiting thinning eggshells, morphologic abnormalities, and impaired viability of offspring [1]
The east coast cohorts comprises individuals who have been exposed to POPs at different times in their lives; those who are born and grown up in a fisherman's family and/ or a fishing village are likely to have been exposed to POPs in utero and during their childhood, whereas others may have had high exposure only during their adult life
The major strengths of the studies were that the study populations included socio-economic similar cohorts, which enabled good opportunities to control for confounding, and the cohorts included the necessary exposure contrasts, which made it possible to investigate the hypothe
Summary
Concerns regarding health effects of persistent organochlorine pollutants (POPs) were first expressed in the 1960's when exposed animals were found to be affected, and exhibiting thinning eggshells, morphologic abnormalities, and impaired viability of offspring [1]. East coast fishermen's sisters have been found to be more likely to have grown up in a fishing village and/or fisherman's family [17], suggesting that they may be a fitting group when investigating health effects due to a high dietary exposure to POPs during childhood and adolescence, or even in utero. Female reproduction parameters East coast fishermen's wives and fishermen's sisters, who had grown up in a fishing village and/or fisherman's family tended to be somewhat older at menarche than referents from the same coastal area [38]. Among the east coast women, growing up in fishing village and/or fisherman's family did not suggest any negative effect on TTP, neither did a high consumption of fatty fish [24,25,39] or serum/plasma concentrations of CB-153 [26,33,39]. No specific malformation was overrepresented in the east coast cohorts [17,43]
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