Volume 484, 15 June 2014, Pages 121–128
Maternal diet, prenatal exposure to dioxin-like compounds and birth outcomes in a European prospective mother–child study (NewGeneris)
Highlights
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- Dioxin-diet score was defined using RRR in a five country population.
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- Dioxin-diet score was positively correlated to dioxin-like activity in maternal blood.
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- Women following a diet high in meat and fish had a higher dioxin-diet score.
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- High dioxin-diet score was associated with a 121 g reduction in birth weight.
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- Maternal diet can contribute to foetal exposure to dioxins and dioxin-like compounds.
Abstract
Maternal
diet can result in exposure to environmental contaminants including
dioxins which may influence foetal growth. We investigated the
association between maternal diet and birth outcomes by defining a
dioxin-rich diet. We used validated food frequency questionnaires to
assess the diet of pregnant women from Greece, Spain, United Kingdom,
Denmark and Norway and estimated plasma dioxin-like activity by the
Dioxin-Responsive Chemically Activated LUciferase eXpression (DR-CALUX®)
bioassay in 604 maternal blood samples collected at delivery. We
applied reduced rank regression to identify a dioxin-rich dietary
pattern based on dioxin-like activity (DR-CALUX®) levels in maternal
plasma, and calculated a dioxin-diet score as an estimate of adherence
to this dietary pattern. In the five country population, dioxin-diet
score was characterised by high consumption of red and white meat, lean
and fatty fish, low-fat dairy and low consumption of salty snacks and
high-fat cheese, during pregnancy. The upper tertile of the dioxin-diet
score was associated with a change in birth weight of − 121 g (95%
confidence intervals: − 232, − 10 g) compared to the lower tertile after
adjustment for confounders. A small non-significant reduction in
gestational age was also observed (− 1.4 days, 95% CI: − 3.8, 1.0 days).
Our results suggest that maternal diet might contribute to the exposure
of the foetus to dioxins and dioxin-like compounds and may be related
to reduced birth weight. More studies are needed to develop updated
dietary guidelines for women of reproductive age, aiming to the
reduction of dietary exposure to persistent organic pollutants as
dioxins and dioxin-like compounds.
Keywords
- Dietary patterns;
- Pregnancy;
- Dioxins;
- Birth weight;
- Cohort study;
- DR-CALUX
- Corresponding
author at: Department of Exposure and Risk Assessment, Division of
Environmental Medicine, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, PO Box
4404 Nydalen, NO-0403 Oslo, Norway. Tel.:
+ 47 21076511.
Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
