A study by National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) researchers suggests that children’s exposure to plasticizers is associated with reduced IQ and decreased cognitive development.
NHRI researcher Wang Shu-li (王淑麗) on Thursday announced the results of the 12-year study, saying that a 100 percent increase in children’s urinary phthalate metabolite levels lowers IQ scores by about 1 point.
Phthalates are a family of industrial chemicals that are widely used as plasticizers or softeners in a variety of commercial products, including food packaging, medical equipment, toys, furniture and cosmetics.
The team recruited 430 pregnant women in their third trimester from 2001 to 2002 and collected urine samples from mothers during pregnancy and later from the children, with a follow-up visit every three years up to 2012, Wang said.
The samples were analyzed for seven metabolite concentrations of widely used phthalates to examine the relationships between the phthalate metabolite levels and cognitive function, Wang said.
Significant inverse associations were found between the children’s IQ scores and their levels of metabolites of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate — the most common of the phthalates — as the mean IQ scores of the top 25 percent of children who had the highest phthalate metabolite levels were 5.69 points lower than those of the bottom 25 percent of children, who had lowest phthalates exposure, Wang said.
However, no significant association between maternal phthalate exposure and the children’s IQ scores was observed, she said.
Studies have suggested that low doses of phthalates could decrease the number of certain brain neurons, or disrupt the function of thyroid activity affecting neurocognitive development, she said, adding that phthalates are also considered endocrine disruptors that could boost estrogen and inhibit androgen.
The team found that children showed higher urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations than adults, suggesting that early-life phthalate exposure plays a significant role in cognitive development, she said.
The government in 2011 set the tolerable daily intake of DEHP at 50 micrograms per kilogram of body weight after phthalates used for industrial purposes were discovered in food products, before which 5 percent of children aged between two to eight were found to have consumed more than the allowable daily intake, but the percentages have diminished since food safety regulations were bolstered, she said.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read: