Dietary intake of environmentally persistent plaguicides in the european population

[EN] Global pollution has become one of the most important problems of the modern societies and pesticides play a major role among the chemical contaminants that are released to the environment every year. Organochlorine compounds have been widely used in the past all over the world as pesticides and some of them are still used for the control of vectors of infectious diseases. Due to their high lipophilicity, stability and resistance to degradation, most of them have been banned or strictly regulated but their levels remain high in the environment as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Their presence in the environment leads to their introduction into the food chain, especially affecting food of animal origin with higher fat content. Due to their liposolubility, these substances tend to be bioaccumulated into the fat tissues of living beings along their entire lives, and to be biomagnificated across trophic levels in the food chain. Thus, the main human source of these pesticides comes from the daily intake of contaminated food from environmental sources. It has been established the role of many of the POPs as endocrine disruptors and even as carcinogenic agents, being thus considered as important risk factors for health. Moreover, chronic exposure to pesticides, even at very low levels, has been related with cancer, fertility problems, immunosuppression and other diseases. For this reason, it is important to know the level of POPs contamination and to identify the main sources contributing to it. Fish, meat and dairy products are the food groups with the highest levels of pollution. However, the residue levels vary by geographic area, and are influenced by several factors as food security policies, local pesticide use patterns, environmental practices, or the time when the study is conducted. Food habits, conditioned by different social and economic factors, as well as several biological factors (i.e. gender, sex and age), determine the levels of POPs exposure in the population. The purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of the dietary intake of environmentally persistent pesticides by the European population, and the potential adverse consequences of this exposure on human health.

Complex organochlorine pesticide mixtures as determinant factor for breast cancer risk: a population-based case-control study in the Canary Islands (Spain)

[EN] Background: All the relevant risk factors contributing to breast cancer etiology are not fully known. Exposure to organochlorine pesticides has been linked to an increased incidence of the disease, although not all data have been consistent. Most published studies evaluated the exposure to organochlorines individually, ignoring the potential effects exerted by the mixtures of chemicals. Methods: This population-based study was designed to evaluate the profile of mixtures of organochlorines detected in 103 healthy women and 121 women diagnosed with breast cancer from Gran Canaria Island, and the relation between the exposure to these compounds and breast cancer risk.Results: The most prevalent mixture of organochlorines among healthy women was the combination of lindane and endrin, and this mixture was not detected in any affected women. Breast cancer patients presented more frequently a combination of aldrin, dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) and dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane (DDD), and this mixture was not found in any healthy woman. After adjusting for covariables, the risk of breast cancer was moderately associated with DDD (OR = 1.008, confidence interval 95% 1.001-1.015, p = 0.024).Conclusions: This study indicates that healthy women show a very different profile of organochlorine pesticide mixtures than breast cancer patients, suggesting that organochlorine pesticide mixtures could play a relevant role in breast cancer risk.

Cruising for ocean conservation: no exactly a waste of time. Plastic pollution in the oceans

Grabación realizada por Ciencia compartida (Biblioteca Universitaria)

Three-dimensional simulation of wind fields and air pollution over complex terrain

[EN]In this talk we introduce a new methodology for wind field simulation or forecasting over complex terrain. The idea is to use wind measurements or predictions of the HARMONIE mesoscale model as the input data for an adaptive finite element mass consistent wind model [1,2]. The method has been recently implemented in the freely-available Wind3D code [3]. A description of the HARMONIE Non-Hydrostatic Dynamics can be found in [4]. The results of HARMONIE (obtained with a maximum resolution about 1 Km) are refined by the finite element model in a local scale (about a few meters). An interface between both models is implemented such that the initial wind field approximation is obtained by a suitable interpolation of the HARMONIE results…

Effects of light pollution by car headlights on loggerhead hatchlings in Cape Verde

[EN] Many sea turtle nesting areas are experiencing a tremendous growth in tourism during the last decades that will likely continue in the near future. Many touristic activities involve light pollution by the increasing presence of vehicles close or even over the beaches. Vehicles can drive towards or along the beaches and even stay with the lights turned on illuminating during prolonged periods of time significant zones with sea turtle nesting activity. Thus, it is important to evaluate the impact of car light pollution on both nesting females and newborns in their search of the sea.

Complex organochlorine pesticide mixtures as determinant factor for breast cancer risk: a population-based case–control study in the Canary Islands (Spain)

[EN]All the relevant risk factors contributing to breast cancer etiology are not fully known. Exposure to organochlorine pesticides has been linked to an increased incidence of the disease, although not all data have been consistent. Most published studies evaluated the exposure to organochlorines individually, ignoring the potential effects exerted by the mixtures of chemicals.