A Testimony-Case Study in a French Family Troop
Using a familial case control study, Marie-Odile Soyer-Gobillard – former director emeritus at the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) – and Charles Sultan show that there are serious effects on the psychological and physical health of the descendants of women treated with synthetic hormones during their pregnancy: psychiatric illnesses are often found associated with somatic disorders which are well known to be the DES and EE signature.
Behavioral and Somatic Disorders in Children Exposed in Utero to Synthetic Hormones: A Testimony-Case Study in a French Family Troop, Endocrinology and Metabolism, intechopen, DOI: 10.5772/48637, October 3, 2012.
Synthetic hormones, acting as endocrine disturbers, are toxic for humans, especially for pregnant women and their children, probably partly in relation with their toxic degradation status.
In all cases girls suffered more than boys either of somatic and/or psychiatric disorders due to the estrogen receptor alpha or beta concentration higher in female fetus than in male. It is also clear that in all the families most of the exposed children are ill while quite the unexposed are not.
2012 Study Overview
- Materials and methods: Gathering questionnaires and the evidence
- Results / Data Analysis / Discussion
- A multi-generational effect? By what mechanism?
- Conclusion
A multi-generational effect? By what mechanism?
Multi-generational carcinogenesis studies were realized on mice after diethylstilbestrol impregnation with impressive and undisputable results. Our observations presented in this present work from the French HHORAGES troop raises the question of the mechanism through with synthetic hormones as DES cause either psychiatric disorders in exposed children and/or adverse effects in subsequent generations. Since Abdomaleky et al concluded that modulation of gene-environment interactions may be trough DNA methylation, authors put forward hypothesis that DES-induced changes in epigenetic background and alteration of DNA methylations could be significant factors. The pregnant mother’s exposure to DES at very early neurodevelopment time and/or at time of sex determination would appear to be sufficient to alter the remethylation of neuron precursors and/or of the fetus germ line. Only a few third-generation children suffering psychiatric illness are mentioned in testimonies. This is understandable because third generation exposed children are still too young (excepted in some cases) to present psychiatric disorders as schizophrenia which is not the case for hypospads that are detectable from birth in male children and grand-children. Work is already under way concerning the gene X environment DES impact hypothesis by comparing DES and EE exposed children, various genetic and epigenetic factors to those of mother and unexposed children of the same family as studied by the INSERM team U796 in collaboration with the HHORAGES families.
Conclusions
In the present familial case control study, we have shown that there are serious effects on the psychological and physical health of the descendants of women treated with synthetic hormones during their pregnancy: psychiatric illnesses are often found associated with somatic disorders which are well known to be the DES and EE signature. Synthetic hormones, acting as endocrine disturbers, are toxic for humans, especially for pregnant women and their children, probably partly in relation with their toxic degradation status. In all cases girls suffered more than boys either of somatic and/or psychiatric disorders due to the estrogen receptor alpha or beta concentration higher in female fetus than in male. It is also clear that in all the families most of the exposed children are ill while quite the unexposed are not.
So what now? As the precautionary principle was not applied in the past, and still is not in force today, and since the lessons of recent history were never taken into account , it is our common duty to repair the damage by supporting the devastated families, and by pursuing research work on the observation of trans-generational effects. Such effects are already highlighted by the demonstration that cancers are observed even in the fourth generation in mice . According to the Skinner’s mini review “the ability of an environmental compound (as DES or EE) to promote the reprogramming of the germ-line appears to be the causal factor in the epigenetic transgenerational phenotype,” we observed an increase of the genital malformations in the third generation in male infants whose mothers were treated with xenoestrogens. In the HHORAGES troop, DES and EEexposed infants are already pointed out as bodily and/or psychologically impaired after their mothers were treated with clomifene citrate (an ovulation stimulator previously used for IVF-type medically assisted procreation). Another concern is the putative future effect of ethinylestradiol containing oral estrogenic contraception on future generations due to its lipophily after its metabolization and its future release in fetus through the placenta. As for the demonstration of the causality link within the HHORAGES troop, will we have to wait for a large-scale epidemiological study, or are we allowed to think that the impressive figures that we are publishing in this work are not merely random? The only way now is to respect absolutely the precautionary principle and to delete completely or to give the less possible toxic (synthetic) hormone medication: for example Clavel Chapelon and her Endogenous Hormones and Breast Cancer Collaborative Group in Villejuif informed that natural hormone as micronized (natural) progestin associated with estrogens (synthetic alas!) is more often ordered for SHT (Substitutive Hormonal Treatment) in order to avoid breast cancer. Unfortunately, she said also that in the contrary the same SHT is not recommended to avoid the endometrium cancer …
As Newbold et al said after they reviewed the damages caused by DES ,
“only new advances in the knowledge of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of the disruptions of fetal development will enable us to be aware of the risks entailed by the other estrogenic disruptors which are present around us and in ourselves, even at very low doses”
, whilst Theo Colborn insists on the fact that the foetus cannot be protected against endocrine disruptors, whatever they may be, except at zero level.
Click to download the complete PDF.
More DES DiEthylStilbestrol Resources
- Other studies on DES and psychological health.
- Diethylstilbestrol DES studies by topics.