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 Babies tended to be heavier at birth, and more likely to become
overweight by age 8, when mothers used makeup, lotions and other
common beauty products containing parabens while pregnant, the study
found. One of these chemicals, butylparaben, was associated with
excess weight only in girls.
"Our results provide strong evidence that parabens, in particular
butylparaben, contribute to an increased risk that children will
become overweight," said senior study author Tobias Polte of Leipzig
University Medical Center in Germany.
"However, there are many other factors playing an important role in
weight gain, such as a (high calorie) diet and lack of exercise,"
Polte said by email.
Parabens are often used in beauty products because they have
antimicrobial properties and can also act as a preservative. They
are known to disrupt the endocrine system, which regulates hormones
involved in reproduction, growth and metabolism.
The chemicals can cross through the skin and seep into the body, and
some previous research also suggests that parabens in products used
by pregnant women can impact babies' development.
In the current study, researchers collected data on 629 mother-child
pairs between 2006 and 2008, asking women about paraben exposure
late in pregnancy and then checking children's height and weight
annually.
Mothers who reported using products known to contain parabens during
pregnancy had higher levels of parabens detected in urine tests than
women who said they didn't use these products while they were
pregnant, the study found.
And women with higher levels of butylparaben in their urine were
more likely to have overweight kids than women with lower levels in
their urine. The excess weight was seen in girls, but not boys.
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Researchers separately examined the impact of butylparaben on weight
in mice, and found that exposure to this chemical was associated
with increased food intake and weight gain in female offspring.
They suggest that exposure to butylparaben during pregnancy might
trigger genetic changes in babies that impair their ability to
regulate food intake or make them crave and consume more food than
they would otherwise, the study team concludes in Nature
Communications.
The study wasn't designed to prove whether or how prenatal exposure
to parabens might directly impact weight gain in children. It's also
not clear if results from mice are applicable to humans.
Even so, it makes sense for pregnant women to check product labels
and steer clear of beauty items containing parabens, said Luz
Claudio, an environmental health researcher at the Icahn School of
Medicine in New York City who wasn't involved in the study.
This is particularly true if women know they're having girls,
because the weight gain associated with parabens appeared to impact
females, not males, Claudio said by email.
"The significance of this finding cannot be underestimated because
girls and women typically used more personal care products and
cosmetics containing parabens than do boys and men," Claudio said.
"Thus, this effect of early exposure to parabens in females could
potentially continue to increase as they grow and use even more of
these products, potentially affecting the next generation of girls."
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/37gpjVi Nature Communications, online
February 11, 2020.
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