Endocrine disruptors cause fatty liver

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/tes-edc030615.php

Public Release: 6-Mar-2015
The Endocrine Society

Exposure to low doses of hormone-disrupting chemicals early in life can alter gene expression in the liver as well as liver function, increasing the susceptibility to obesity and other metabolic diseases in adulthood, a new study finds. Results of the animal study will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.

Brief exposure in infancy to several industrial chemicals that are common in the human environment, particularly bisphenol A (BPA), caused fatty liver disease in adulthood, the researchers found in rats.

"Even a short exposure to these endocrine disruptors at the wrong time of development has a lifelong effect on the individual," said the study's senior investigator, Cheryl Lyn Walker, PhD, director of the Texas A&M University Health Science Center Institute of Biosciences and Technology, Houston.

Because the changes occur at the molecular level, they are not evident until later in life, she said.

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