Environmental Endocrine Disruptors and Endometriosis

Abstract

As a consequence of industrialization, thousands of man-made chemicals have been developed with few undergoing rigorous safety assessment prior to commercial use. Ubiquitous exposure to these compounds, many of which act as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), has been suggested to be one factor in the increasing incidence of numerous diseases, including endometriosis. Endometriosis, the presence of endometrial glands and stroma outside the uterus, is a common disorder of reproductive-age women. Although a number of population-based studies have suggested that exposure to environmental EDCs may affect a woman's risk of developing this disease, results of epidemiology assessments are often equivocal. The development of endometriosis is, however, a process occurring over time; thus, a single assessment of toxicant body burden cannot definitively be linked to causation of disease. For this reason, numerous investigators have utilized a variety of rodent models to examine the impact of specific EDCs on the development of experimental endometriosis. These studies identified multiple chemicals capable of influencing physiologic processes necessary for the establishment and/or survival of ectopic tissues in rodents, suggesting that these compounds may also be of concern for women. Importantly, these models serve as useful tools to explore strategies that may prevent adverse outcomes following EDC exposure.

Keywords: Developmental exposure; Dioxin; Endocrine disruptors; Endometriosis; Experimental models.

Fig. 1. Maternal exposure affects three generations simultaneously.

Exposure of a pregnant woman, or any other mammal, to substances such as EDCs directly exposes not only the mother but also her fetus. Present within the fetus are germ cells, which have the potential to become her grandchildren. In this context the pregnant woman is considered the “founding generation” or F0. The fetus she carries is the F1 generation, while the germ cells represent the potential F2 generation. For this reason, chemical or toxicant exposure of a pregnant woman is termed “multigenerational” exposure