Perinatal exposure to chlordecone, thyroid hormone status and neurodevelopment in infants: The Timoun cohort study in Guadeloupe (French West Indies).

Sylvaine Cordier (1) , Emilie Bouquet (1) , Charline Warembourg (1) , Catherine Massart (2) , Florence Rouget (1) , Philippe Kadhel (1) , Henri Bataille (3) , Christine Monfort (1) , Olivier Boucher (4) , Gina Muckle (5) , Luc Multigner (1)

1 Irset - Institut de recherche en santé, environnement et travail
2 CIC - Centre d'Investigation Clinique [Rennes]
3 CHU de la Martinique [Fort de France]
4 CHUQ - Centre hospitalier universitaire de Québec
5 Axe santé des populations et pratiques optimales en santé

Background - Perinatal exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals may affect thyroid hormones homeostasis and impair brain development. Chlordecone, an organochlorine insecticide widely used in the French West Indies has known estrogenic and progestin properties, but no data is available, human or animal, on its action on thyroid hormone system. Objectives - Our aim was to evaluate the impact of perinatal exposure to chlordecone on the thyroid hormone system of a sample of infants from the Timoun mother-child cohort in Guadeloupe and their further neurodevelopment. Methods - Chlordecone was measured in cord blood and breast milk samples. Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), free tri-iodothyronine (FT3), free thyroxine (FT4) were determined in child blood at 3 months (n=111). Toddlers were further assessed at 18 months using an adapted version of the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). Results - Cord chlordecone was associated with an increase in TSH in boys, whereas postnatal exposure was associated with a decrease in FT3 overall, and in FT4 among girls. Higher TSH level at 3 months was positively associated with the ASQ score of fine motor development at 18 months among boys, but TSH did not modify the association between prenatal chlordecone exposure and poorer ASQ fine motor score. Conclusions - Perinatal exposure to chlordecone may affect TSH and thyroid hormone levels at 3 months, differently according to the sex of the infant. This disruption however did not appear to intervene in the pathway between prenatal chlordecone exposure and fine motor child development.

Keywords: Breast Feeding; Children; Chlordecone; Prenatal; Thyroid Hormone

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Sylvaine Cordier, Emilie Bouquet, Charline Warembourg, Catherine Massart, Florence Rouget, et al.. Perinatal exposure to chlordecone, thyroid hormone status and neurodevelopment in infants: The Timoun cohort study in Guadeloupe (French West Indies).. Environmental Research, 2015, 138C, pp.271-278. ⟨10.1016/j.envres.2015.02.021⟩. ⟨hal-01134317⟩