Perinatal Exposure to Environmental DDT and Risk of Metabolic Syndrome

University Of California At Davis, Davis CA

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Abstract

Project Summary The candidate seeks career development support that will build on her interdisciplinary training in toxicology and environmental epidemiology and enable her to advance her scientific career by investigating the possible contribution of DDT exposure in early life to risk of the metabolic syndrome and diabetes. The scientific goal is to test the hypothesis that perinatal exposure to DDT increases risk of metabolic syndrome in aging adults in a dose-dependent manner. The candidate proposes an integrated series of toxicologic and epidemiologic studies. The toxicologic studies (K99 MENTORED PHASE) will incorporate dynamic in vivo physiologic techniques such as metabolic tracers and euglycemic clamping developed in medical endocrinology to explore tissue specific mechanisms of perinatal DDT toxicity in mice. The independent (R00 PHASE) will involve follow-up of the now middle-aged daughters of women who participated in the Child Health and Development Studies birth cohort study in California over 40 years ago and will involve inter-generational life course analyses. The independent phase will conclude with research seeking to identify biomarkers of DDT metabolic toxicity in mice. Metabolic syndrome, often associated with obesity and diabetes, affects over 47 million US residents. Prevalence has increased rapidly in the past decade. The possibility of a toxic environmental chemical contribution to this upward trend is relatively unexplored. There are however, human and mechanistic laboratory data suggesting that organochlorine pesticides, DDT among them, are associated with increased risk of diabetes and the metabolic syndrome. DDT was used extensively in the US until 1972 and is still much used worldwide in malaria control. At the conclusion of training, the candidate will transition to an independent career focused on elucidation of the mechanisms of perinatal exposures involved in metabolic and endocrine dysfunction. These studies should lead to a better understanding of the possible role of environmental toxicants in the etiology of metabolic syndrome and diabetes and will establish a strongly interdisciplinary foundation for the candidate's future research.