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传统上认为，肥胖是人体摄入高热量食物与能量消耗对比的结果。 最新发表在《环境污染》杂志上的医学研究表明：一些持久性有机污染物的累计水平程度与个人的肥胖、血清胆固醇和甘油三酯有关，不论性别、年龄、居住地或者吸烟情况。  这篇研究分析了近300名男性和女性脂肪组织中的污染物积累程度。通过物质的分析，这些污染物被称为有机持久性污染物，可以在环境中保存多年，甚至几十年也不会退化掉。人类主要通过饮食暴露于这些污染物中，持久性的有机污染物在人体的脂肪中逐渐积累。 此次研究中，持久性有机污染物分析包括： DDE，杀虫剂DDT的主要代谢物，在1980年代被广泛的使用，目前DDE被一些国家用来对抗疟疾。 杀虫剂林丹，在过去经常用在农业当中，治疗虱子和疥疮。 多氯联苯，用于许多工业设备，以及一些仍然存在的旧变压器当中。  所有的这些污染物都与肥胖的指标相关，以及与胆固醇或甘油三酯的水平相关。研究员Arrebola博士表示：“有机污染物积累水平较高的人群定量为更肥胖人群，同时他们也呈现出较高水平的胆固醇和甘油三酯，这些都被视为重要的心血管疾病的危险因素。尽管这些关系是复杂的，它们也并不是总呈现为线性模式。” 英文原文： Level of pollutants accumulated in the body linked to obesity levels This is a study published in the journal Environmental Pollution, included researchers from the University of Granada, the San Cecilio and Virgen de las Nieves university hospitals, and the Andalusian School of Public Health, all of them members of the Granada Biohealth Research Institute. This research has analysed the levels of pollutants accumulated in adipose tissue (fat) in nearly 300 men and women, who were attended in the surgery services of two hospitals in the province of Granada (Spain). The substances analysed, known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), can remain in the environment for years, even decades, without degrading. 'Humans are exposed to POPs mainly through diet. Besides, POPs accumulate gradually in body fat, and this is the reason why the median levels in our study give us an idea of an individual's accumulated exposition over a number of years,' says Juan Pedro Arrebola, the main author of the article. Using complex statistical methods, these scientists confirmed that the accumulated levels of several POPs were related to obesity and to serum levels of cholesterol and triglycerides in individuals, irrespective of the gender, age, place of residence or smoking habits of participants in the survey. 'In general we found that people with higher levels of POPs were quantitatively more obese, and also showed higher levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, all of them regarded as important risk factors for cardiovascular disease, although these relations were complex and they did not always show linear patterns,' Arrebola claims. POPs subject to analysis Those POPs subject to analysis include DDE, the main metabolite of pesticide DDT, widely used all over the world in the 1980s, and currently employed by some countries to combat malaria. They also included the insecticide lindane, frequently used in the past in agriculture and also in certain medicines for lice and scabies. The survey also included a group of polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, used in numerous industrial equipment, and which are still present in old electric transformers. All these pollutants were somehow associated with obesity indexes, as well as cholesterol and/or triglycerides levels. In spite of the fact that their use is currently very restricted, POPs are a very serious public health problem. Actually, 100% of participants in this survey presented detectable levels of one or more of these compounds. 'This universal [exposure] turns their impact on human health into a most important issue. Besides, our results suggest that there are no safe exposure levels for these pollutants, which can also interact among them to affect health,' Arrebola added. Previous studies have demonstrated that the general population is exposed to POPs mainly through food with a high fat content. This includes fish and meat from large animals with a high level of fat. This is the reason why a growing number of researchers recommend against over-consumption. Doctor Arrebola's research group is currently monitoring the subjects of their study over the course of several years, to confirm whether those subjects exposed have shown a higher risk of developing certain pathologies, such as high blood pressure, obesity, or cardiovascular disease. 'Obesity-genic' Pollutants Obesity has become a universal epidemic whose impact in Europe has tripled during the last few decades. The most important problem is that obese people have a high risk of suffering from numerous health problems such as cardiovascular disease, which the World Health Organisation considers the main cause of death worldwide. It has been traditionally thought that obesity results from a high caloric intake in comparison with energy expenditure. 'We believe that the results are not just the consequence of a higher intake of food by obese people. There is evidence that human exposure to certain chemical substances called 'obesogenic' could favour the growth and proliferation of adipocytes (fat cells), and provoke therefore an increase in body fat. We suspect besides that certain environmental pollutants could also provoke alterations in cholesterol and triglycerides levels and therefore contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease,' Arrebola concludes. |
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