Endocrine disrupters and child health

Overview

The present document is a short summary of the current knowledge of the effects of endocrine disrupters on child health. We focus on the congenital disorders, cryptorchidism and hypospadias, which have a clear endocrine connection, on thyroid hormone-related problems, and on puberty. Some of the endocrine disrupters, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) also have adverse effects on neurocognitive development.

However, that is a topic of an entirely different large body of literature that is not related to endocrine disruption and therefore not presented here. Even endocrine disruption itself is a huge research area, and we have not been able to include all studies here. We hope that this serves as an introduction to new studies and aids in better understanding of the developmental effects of endocrine disrupters on child health.