Thanks to envirovore for alerting us to this story.

Considering the toxic history of pesticides (timeline excerpted from The War on Bugs by Will Allen), we shouldn’t be surprised.

Tributyltin, the main active ingredient in many pesticides, causes damage to the nervous, immune and reproductive systems of animals from water fleas to humans.

But that’s not all. The chemical may interfere with cells, making people more prone to obesity.

So far, tributyltin has shown to cause the growth of excess fat tissue in mice exposed in utero. This study published recently in a BioScience article shows a parallel between the rise in obesity over the past 40 years, and the rise in use of industrial chemicals over the same time period. The correlation is under scientific scrutiny but shows a “plausible and provocative” association between the two.

Visit envirovore.com for more.

Share

 Printer-Friendly

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 21st, 2008 at 2:47 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.