Breast v. Bottle - Name Your Poison

BrooklynDodger previously blogged a paper showing that formula feeding was associated with greater BMI in later life compared to breast feeding. This paper, based on Spanish body burdens of organochlorines, shows that breast feeding is associated with higher body burdens of OC’s in early life, compared to formula feeding.

This is not exactly surprising.

Obviously, it needs to be considered whether these OC's are associated with any effect at these levels. The task of assessing effects in humans is complicated by the wide distribution of the exposures.

In some ways, concern for adverse effect of body burden of OC's or POP's is so '60s and Rachel Carson, while the new focus is fine, ultrafine or nanoparticles.

Maybe the OC’s are associated with the higher BMI’s in the other study?

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Environmental Research Volume 98, Issue 1 , May 2005, Pages 8-13

Breastfeeding and concentrations of HCB and p,p′-DDE at the age of 1 year
Núria Ribas-Fitóa, , , Joan O. Grimaltb, Esther Marcob, Maria Salaa, Carlos Mazónc and Jordi Sunyera aRespiratory and Environmental Health Research Unit, Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica, C.Dr. Aiguader, 80, 08003 Barcelona, SpainbDepartment of Environmental Chemistry, CID-CSIC, Barcelona, SpaincPrimary Health Care Center of Flix, Tarragona, Spain Received 16 February 2004; revised 17 May 2004; accepted 27 May 2004. Available online 14 August 2004.
Abstract
Exposure to organochlorine compounds (OCs) occurs both in utero and through breastfeeding. Levels of hexachlorobenzene (HCB) in the cord serum of newborns from a population located in the vicinity of an electrochemical factory in Spain are among the highest ever reported. We aimed to assess the degree of breast milk contamination in this population and the subsequent exposure of children to these chemicals through breastfeeding. A birth cohort including 92 mother–infant pairs (84% of all births in the study area) was recruited between 1997 and 1999 in five neighboring villages. OCs were measured in cord serum, colostrum, breast milk, and children's serum at 13 months of age. Concentrations of OCs were detected and quantified in all colostrum and milk samples. The concentrations in mature milk were lower than those encountered in colostrum. At 13 months of age the highest concentration of OC was found for dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethane (p,p′-DDE), in contrast to what these children presented at birth, where HCB was the highest compound. Those infants who were breastfed had higher concentrations at the age of 1 than those who were formula fed (2.13 ng/mL of HCB among formula feeders vs 4.26 among breast feeders, and 1.95 of p,p′-DDE vs 6.00 (P<0.05)). Long-term breastfeeding leads to a dose–response increase of the concentrations in children's serum during the first year of life.