Association Between the Exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and Body Weight Status: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Being a major risk factor of a wide range of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), obesity has been one of the most challenging public health problems today. It is possibly the result of many different factors which include but are not restricted to environmental exposure to Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs), such as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). POPs are a class of highly lipophilic chemical pollutants that reside in lipid-containing tissues for several years before being excreted by the body. PURPOSE: Because of the possible proposed role of POPs in inducing obesity, this study aims to conduct a Systematic Review (SR) to investigate the association between exposure to POPs and body weight status in all age groups. This thesis will explore specifically the effect of OCPs- a pesticide class of POPs- exposure on birthweight of infants. METHODS: four databases were searched with all terms and controlled vocabulary relevant to POPs and obesity until 08/10/2020, without any publication date restriction. Starting with 18,367 references, scanning was done by title and abstract followed by full text and then data extraction and meta-analysis. RESULTS: data of 10 studies (with 25 exposures) analyzed on RevMan suggest a significant correlation between individual exposure to DDE and HCB with regression coefficients of -8.20 g and -2.88 g respectively. The overall pooled primary analysis of all OCPs also suggests a significant inverse correlation with birthweight by -3.815 grams (CI -5.30, -2.33). Upon subgroup analysis, HCH and DDT class showed a correlation as well with regression coefficients of -3.32 g and -6.17 g respectively. CONCLUSION: exposure of infants to OCPs might be correlated with decreased birthweight.