Common flame retardants cause mice to give birth to offspring that become diabetic, study finds

[Klaralven]

A new UC Riverside study shows flame retardants found in nearly every American home cause mice to give birth to offspring that become diabetic.

These flame retardants, called PBDEs, have been associated with diabetes in adult humans. This study demonstrates that PBDEs cause diabetes in mice only exposed to the chemical through their mothers.

"The mice received PBDEs from their mothers while they were in the womb and as young babies through mother's milk," said Elena Kozlova, lead study author and UC Riverside neuroscience doctoral student. "Remarkably, in adulthood, long after the exposure to the chemicals, the female offspring developed diabetes."

Results of the study have been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

PBDEs are common household chemicals added to furniture, upholstery, and electronics to prevent fires. They get released into the air people breathe at home, in their cars, and in airplanes because their chemical bond to surfaces is weak.

"PBDEs are everywhere in the home. They're impossible to completely avoid," said UCR neuroscientist and corresponding author of the study, Dr. Margarita Curras-Collazo.

"Even though the most harmful PBDEs have been banned from production and import into the U.S., inadequate recycling of products that contain them has continued to leach PBDEs into water, soil, and air. As a result, researchers continue to find them in human blood, fat, fetal tissues, as well as maternal breast milk in countries worldwide."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201110081546.htm

The history of flame retardants is a history of misguided regulation beginning in 1975 with California's Technical Bulletin 117. For the next decades, furniture and children's sleepwear were loaded with toxic chemicals.

[underpants]

1. Yeah but we have mice that can't catch fire

It’s always a balance.

[LiberalArkie]

2. And exploding mice a messy to clean up.

[underpants]

3. Like I said. It's a balance.

[WyattKansas]

4. I have always been curious if anything was going on in the country thru my childhood...

That made me more susceptible to T1 diabetes in the 8th grade. I grew up on a farm and had to clean out a moldy milo bin, which made my white blood cell count go nuts and made me sick, along with my brother... I didn't feel well for months after that and sure enough, was diagnosed as a T1 diabetic about 5-6 months later. I was just hitting my final big growth spurt at the time and my brother was a couple years ahead of me coming out of his, so I always presumed that is why I became the unfortunate one.

But it has always nagged me if something else in the environment, food supply, farm chemicals, or what the gov't/dept. of defense was doing put me at risk.