title: Assessing Human Health Risk to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals: a Focus on Prenatal Exposures and Oxidative Stress.
abstract: Understanding the health risk posed by endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) is a challenge that is receiving intense attention. The following study criteria should be considered to facilitate risk assessment for exposure to EDCs: 1) characterization of target health outcomes and their mediators, 2) study of exposures in the context of critical periods of development, 3) accurate estimates of human exposures and use of human-relevant exposures in animal studies, and 4) cross-species comparisons. In this commentary, we discuss the importance and relevance of each of these criteria in studying the effects of prenatal exposure to EDCs. Our discussion focuses on oxidative stress as a mediator of EDC-related health effects due to its association with both EDC exposure and health outcomes. Our recent study (Veiga-Lopez et al. 2015)1addressed each of the four outlined criteria and demonstrated that prenatal bisphenol-A exposure is associated with oxidative stress, a risk factor for developing diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in adulthood.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.
authors.forename: Kari
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Neier
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.
authors.forename: Elizabeth H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Marchlewicz
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.
authors.forename: Dana C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Dolinoy
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Pediatrics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109.
authors.forename: Vasantha
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Padmanabhan
keywords: EDCs; organizational effects; oxidative stress; prenatal programming; risk assessment