April 2011
Perinatal Exposure to Low Doses of Dioxin Can Permanently Impair Human Semen Quality
Our Challenge
- We assisted Italian researchers involved in the Seveso incident who were examining the effects of perinatal dioxin exposure on sperm quality and hormones.
Our Approach
- Estimated the maternal TCDD body burden at conception based on the calculated elimination half-life and their body burdens at the time of an industrial TCDD accident in 1976.
- Frozen maternal samples were measured by isotope-dilution high-resolution mass spectrometry to estimate maternal serum TCDD concentration.
- Concentration measurements were compared between supranormal maternal exposure and background levels of dioxin exposure.
Our Findings
- Those sons who were exposed continuously through breast-feeding during “neonatal minipuberty” had both lower sperm motility and lower reproductive hormone levels than those who were formula fed as infants.
- Results were presented in a published paper [Mocarelli Paolo, et al. 2011. Perinatal Exposure to Low Doses of Dioxin Can Permanently Impair Human Semen Quality. Environmental Health Perspectives. 119:713-718].