MCC-UE 1040 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Intrauterine Growth Restriction, Food And Drug Administration, Chlorpyrifos
Document Summary
The developing endocrine system is uniquely vulnerable to disruption. Organogenesis & tissue differentiation during embryonic development are tightly regulated & temporally coordinated. Natural substances as well as environmental influences can alter these processes. Effects of early life alterations can be permanent & lifelong. Androgens & estrogens play early, essential roles in imprinting sexual dimorphisms in structure, gene expression, & signaling that determine behaviours throughout life. Documented low birth weight children to be at greater risk of developing coronary heart disease. Same theory regarding pre-birth nutrition to diabetes, hypertension, & stroke. Originally emphasized nutritional insults (thrifty phenotype), but increasingly understood to encompass other origins of intrauterine growth retardation or modifications in fetal programming. First observation by herbst & bern of 8 cases of clear cell adenocarcinoma of the vagina. Had been exposed in utero one to two decades earlier to diethylstilbestrol (des), a synthetic estrogen prescribed to pregnant women in the 1950s & 1960s to prevent miscarriage.