Reduced Seminal Parameters Associated With Environmental DDT Exposure and<i>p,p</i>′‐DDE Concentrations in Men in Chiapas, Mexico: A Cross‐Sectional Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In response to mounting concerns about the endocrine-disrupting influence of environmental chemicals on human health, this epidemiological study was initiated to test the hypothesis that nonoccupational exposure to the estrogenic pesticide 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(chlorodiphenyl)ethane (DDT) affects male reproductive parameters. One hundred and sixteen men aged 27 years (SD = 8.2) living in malaria endemic-areas in Chiapas (Mexico), where DDT was sprayed until 2000, participated in a cross-sectional study. Semen analyses were conducted according to World Health Organization methods and a quality control program was followed. DDT exposure was defined as the level of blood plasma p,p'-dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethylene (DDE), the major metabolite of DDT. The p,p'-DDE concentration adjusted for total lipids was 100 times higher than that reported for nonexposed populations at 45 plus or minus 32 mug/g (mean +/- SD). Crude regression analysis showed that several sperm motion parameters, including the percentage of motile sperm, decreased with higher p,p'-DDE concentrations (beta = -8.38; P = .05 for squared motility), and the percentage of sperm with morphological tail defects increased with higher plasma p,p'-DDE concentration (beta = 0.003; P = .017). Insufficient sperm chromatin condensation was observed in 46.6% of participants, and the most severe category of incomplete DNA condensation was also positively correlated with p,p'-DDE concentration (r = .223; P = .044). Therefore, nonoccupational exposure to DDT, as assessed by plasma p,p'-DDE concentrations, is associated with poorer semen parameters in men, indicating adverse effects on testicular function and/or the regulation of reproductive hormones. Previously, a causal role of environmental toxicants in human male infertility has been lacking because observed effects have been the result of unusually high exposures, either occupationally or as a result of industrial accidents, resulting in unprecedented controversy (reviewed by Cheek & McLachlan, Environmental hormones and the male reproductive system. J Androl. 1998;19:5). This is the first epidemiological study demonstrating effects after nonoccupational exposures to DDT. Based on these findings, the effect of DDT on male reproductive health should not be ignored.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".