Fungicide Alters DNA and Causes Sterility Over Generations

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
May 23, 2012

 

 

 

 

Many environmental contaminants are known to cause cancer and an array of birth defects. In particular, endocrine-disrupters, cause interference in reproductive hormones and sterility.

According to a new study , endocrine-disrupters also affect reproductive behavior that are passed down generationally and may be refocusing evolution.

Researchers have found that a common fungicide , used on fruit and vegetable crops, is causing severe physical and psychological disorders.

These effects worsen after three generations, say David Crews, lead author of the study out of the University of Texas. “We are now in the third human generation since the start of the chemical revolution, since humans have been exposed to these kinds of toxins.”

Pregnant rats were exposed to vinclozolin, a common fungicide used on most crops. It is known to disrupt hormonal balance and effect animals across generations.

As the rats were more heavily exposed to vinclozolin, they gained weight and exhibited higher levels of testosterone.

Their moods altered, displaying increased anxiety, sensitivity to stress and the stress-regions in their brains showed increased activity, while non-exposed rats did not display similar behaviors.

The researchers surmised that vinclozolin was responsible for altering the genetic make-up of the rats; as well as affecting their sperm and eggs to cause generational differences related to their exposure to the common chemical.

The fungicide is causing chemical groups to latch onto certain genes which alter DNA sequences in vinclozolin exposed rats.

“The ancestral exposure of your great grandmother alters your brain development to then respond to stress differently,” says Michael Skinner, co-author and a researcher at Washington State University. “We did not know a stress response could be programmed by your ancestors’ environmental exposures.”

The researchers had, in a previous study, shown that vincolozolin was directly responsible for turning genes off and on. This phenomenon is called epigenetics; when an environmental causation is solely responsible for genetic manipulation. The understanding of epigenetics assists scientists in tracking brain and behavior.

The study “adds to the mounting evidence that many pesticides and other chemical pollutants in our environment have harmful effects on mammalian behavior as well as physiology and development,” says biologist Sarah Zala of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology in Vienna, Austria.

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