According to a new University of Michigan study, exposure to a chemical discovered in the weed killer Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides is greatly linked to preterm births.
Exposure to Glyphosate
The study, released in Environmental Health Perspectives, discovered that the appearance of the chemical in the urine of women in late pregnancy was associated with an increased risk for untimely birth, while the connection was inconsistent or ineffective during the early stage of the pregnancy.
Professor of environmental health sciences and also senior associate dean for research at the U-M School of Public Health, senior author John Meeker said: "Since many people are prone to some level of glyphosate and may not even be aware of it, if our outcomes reflect true connection, then the public health implications could be massive." Monica Silver - first author led the study while she was a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Public Health.
Meeker said few years ago he and his collaborators were driving close to the northern coast of Puerto Rico, paying visits to local clinics and research collaborators when he sighted a sign advertising a herbicide that is commonly used on a corner, the rich greenery of the tropical island as a backdrop.
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Effects of the Herbicide in Human
Meeker and collaborators instituted the PROTECT pregnancy and birth cohort twelve years ago to investigate what environmental factors predicted premature birth in Puerto Rico, which for the last couple of decades had been increasing in the island.
Over time, the association, collaborative team - both dozens of collaborators in two hospitals and five clinics throughout the island - have researched a wide range of environmental factors, including maternal stress, metals, chemicals, and so on. The PROTECT study is funded by the Superfund Research Program from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
After noticing the road sign, Meeker and his team explored the scientific literature and discovered that while glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world and that there's mounting proof of its harmful effects on human health, not a lot of studies concentrated on prenatal exposure and its effect on human reproductive and developmental results.
The Main Degradation Products of the Herbicide
The researchers made a discussion to measure glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) - one of the main degradation products of the herbicide - by urine testing, since mammals don't metabolize the chemicals. They ran a test on the urine of 247 pregnant women at the first and third study visit of their pregnancy, at 16-20 weeks and 24-28 weeks.
Taking a look at preterm births (babies born at below 37 weeks of pregnancy) and comparing them to controls, the researchers discovered the possibility of preterm birth were notably elevated amid women with higher urinary concentrations of glyphosate and AMPA at the third visit, while at the first visit associations with levels were increasingly null or inconsistent.
Scientists say that AMPA is not only formed from the degradation of glyphosate, but from other common industrial chemicals too.
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