DDT and Epigenetics

[OkRadLakPok]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the troubles I had since birth. It seems that low dose DDT and low dose estrogenics can be worses than higher doses.

Further, it passes on to your grandkids. In short it never leaves the body and can urn on genes.

My grandma and mom was exposed and I was born with a Disability and all sorts of troubles never seen in our familiy before.

Has anyone researched this in regard to ME and MCS?

 

[Paralee]

@ OkRadLakPok , Sorry I don't know the answer, but very interesting. When I was six we lived on a base in Florida, and every evening a truck would go up and down the residential streets spraying DDT.

As bad as that was, I wonder if the estrogenics aren't worse, sneaky little buggers.

About passing on to your kids I read an article (don't know how I happened on it) that said that if you're mother is unhappy during her pregnancy with you a methyl group ) or part of one can become attached to a place on one of her genes trip happily on to you, and then yours.

I know that's not just what you were asking but sounds maybe related?

(Edit: forgot to say, with tongue in cheek, that it's always the mother's fault, you know.)

 

[Hip]

Organochlorine pesticides such as DDT and dieldrin have been linked to ME/CFS. Ref: 1 2

Whether there might be any epigenetic or generational connection between organochlorines and ME/CFS I don't know.

 

[Marco]

I'm not aware of any research myself (thanks for the links @Hip ) but I've wondered about DDT as an environmental exposure for a long time. It's the only chemical I was aware of being around as a kid.

 

[OkRadLakPok]

I'm not aware of any research myself (thanks for the links @Hip ) but I've wondered about DDT as an environmental exposure for a long time. It's the only chemical I was aware of being around as a kid.

And it seems truly never to leave the bodies of us or any generation after us. They are finding it in every generation after the exposed ones.

 

[Marco]

Spraying or dusting a neurotoxin around probably sounded like a good idea at the time

Student studies using animal models are far from conclusive but interesting all the same :

Here, we report that exposure of mice to 3 mg/kg of DDT every 3 days for 30 days increases mRNA expression of TNF a by 60% in the hippocampus, but not the cortex. These data suggest that DDT exposure causes neuroinflammation preferentially in the brain region that is among the first to degenerate in AD.

http://rise.rutgers.edu/rise2012/scholars.php3?scholar=kcolon

 

[IreneF]

DDT was banned in the US over 35 years ago; its half-life is 2-15 years. Consequently at least 75% of it is gone from the environment. I don't know about its history in other countries, other than that it has continued to be used for insect control in tropical countries.