Thyroid function endocrine disrupting chemicals

Stoker TE, Parks LG, Gray LE, Cooper RL (2000) Endocrine-disrupting chemicals Prepubertal exposures and effects on sexual maturation and thyroid function in the male rat. A focus on the EDSTAC recommendations. Endocrine Disrupter Screening and Testing Advisory Committee. Crit Rev Toxicol, 30(2) 197-252. 

Ammonium perchlorate (AP) has apphcations in munitions, primarily as an oxidizer for solid rocket and missile propellants. It is also used as an air-bag inflator in the automotive industry, in fireworks, and is a contaminant in agricultural fertilizers. Because of these uses and ammonium perchlorate s high solubility, chemical stability, and persistence, it has become distributed widely in surface and ground water systems. There is little information about the effects of perchlorate in these systems or on the aquatic life that inhabits them. However, it is known that perchlorate is an endocrine disrupting chemical that interferes with normal thyroid function and that thyroid dysfunction impacts both growth and development in vertebrates. Because perchlorate competes for iodine binding sites in the thyroid, the addition of iodine to culture water has been examined in order to determine if... 

In recent years, concern that chemicals might inadvertently be disrupting the endocrine system of humans and wildlife has increased. The concerns regarding exposure to these endocrine disrupters are based on adverse effects observed in certain wildlife, fish, and ecosystems increased incidences of certain endocrine-related human diseases and adverse effects observed in laboratory animals exposed to certain chemicals. The main effects reported in both wildlife and humans concern reproductive and sexual development and function altered immune system, nervous system, and thyroid function and hormone-related cancers. Endocrine dismption is not considered a toxicological endpoint in its own right, but a functional change or toxicological mode(s) of action that may lead to adverse effects. Endocrine dismpters are addressed further in Section 4.11. 

Toxicologically the function of the terminal hormones of endocrine cascades (i.e., steroid, retinoid, thyroid hormones) appear to be most susceptible to disruption by chemicals. This is because many foreign molecules share sufficient characteristics with these hormone molecules to allow binding to the nuclear receptors of these hormones in either an agonistic or antagonistic fashion. The binding of the xenobiotic to the... 

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