Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS

Pre-conception susceptibility to endocrine disruptors

Nature Reviews Endocrinology volume 14, pages 505–506 (2018)Cite this article

Subjects

Do our grandparents’ environmental exposures and experiences shape our health and wellbeing? In a ground-breaking study, Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou and colleagues show that this might be the case. In their study, a woman’s use of the pharmaceutical diethylstilbestrol during pregnancy increased the risk of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in her grandchildren.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Kioumourtzoglou, M. A., Coull, B. A., O’Reilly, E. J., Ascherio, A. & Weisskopf, M. G. Association of exposure to diethylstilbestrol during pregnancy with multigenerational neurodevelopmental deficits. JAMA Pediatr. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.0727 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Braun, J. M. Early-life exposure to EDCs: role in childhood obesity and neurodevelopment. Nat. Rev. Endocrinol. 13, 161–173 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Jensen, E. T. & Longnecker, M. P. Pharmacologic sex hormones in pregnancy in relation to offspring obesity. Obesity 22, 2406–2412 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Skinner, M. K. et al. Ancestral dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) exposure promotes epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of obesity. BMC Med. 11, 228 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Braun, J. M., Gennings, C., Hauser, R. & Webster, T. F. What can epidemiological studies tell us about the impact of chemical mixtures on human health? Environ. Health Persp. 124, A6–A9 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Howdeshell, K. L. et al. Cumulative effects of dibutyl phthalate and diethylhexyl phthalate on male rat reproductive tract development: altered fetal steroid hormones and genes. Toxicol. Sci. 99, 190–202 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Braun, J. M., Messerlian, C. M. & Hauser, R. Fathers matter: why it’s time to consider the impact of paternal environmental exposures on children’s health. Curr. Epidemiol. Rep. 4, 46–55 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Dias, B. G. & Ressler, K. J. Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations. Nat. Neurosci. 17, 89–96 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Messerlian, C. et al. Paternal and maternal preconception urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations and child behavior. Environ. Res. 158, 720–728 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  10. Messerlian, C. et al. Paternal and maternal urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations and birth weight of singletons conceived by subfertile couples. Environ. Int. 107, 55–64 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the support of National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences grants R01 ES024381 and R01 ES027408, and thanks R. Hauser for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this commentary.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Joseph M. Braun

Authors
  1. Joseph M. Braun
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joseph M. Braun.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author was financially compensated for serving as an expert witness for plaintiffs in litigation related to tobacco smoke exposures.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Braun, J.M. Pre-conception susceptibility to endocrine disruptors. Nat Rev Endocrinol 14, 505–506 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41574-018-0057-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41574-018-0057-6

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing