Persistent pollutants
Prenatal PFAS tracked 5-year child overweight risk
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
In 412 Scandinavian mother–child pairs, higher maternal PFAS associated with higher child BMI and triceps skinfold z-scores and with overweight/obesity at age 5, with geographic differences.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cohort — Prospective Scandinavian SGA-study follow-up of maternal PFAS/POPs to age-5 adiposity
- N
- N=412 · 412 mother–child pairs from Norway and Sweden
- Population
- Scandinavian mother–child pairs in the NICHD SGA study
- Outcome
- Age-5 BMI, skinfolds, and overweight/obesity related to prenatal PFAS/POPs
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Key findings
55 of 412 children (12%) were overweight/obese at 5 years. Increasing maternal PFAS associated with higher BMI and triceps z-scores and overweight, but associations differed by country and concentration. Skinfolds were used because BMI misses fat-mass differences.
Methodology
Authors followed NICHD Scandinavian SGA-study pairs from Norway and Sweden, measured maternal serum PFAS/POPs, and related them to age-5 BMI, skinfolds, and overweight/obesity (≥85th percentile), discussing possible non-monotonic dose responses.
Limitations
Oversampling of SGA births and country differences mean this is not a simple universal PFAS–obesity law; organochlorines were less consistent than PFAS in the authors’ conclusion.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
NICHD Scandinavian SGA-study pairs found 55 of 412 children (12%) overweight or obese at age 5. Increasing maternal PFAS associated with higher BMI and triceps z-scores and with overweight, but associations differed by country and concentration; organochlorines were less consistent. Swedish NFI lichen occurrence, modeled 10 years apart, fell for three genera (Alectoria relative loss ~1.70%/year; more than half of Alectoria records lost in region 3) — presence/absence change, not human disease odds.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
PFAS logistic results do not agree on which compound or outcome carries the signal. Ronneby's high-cholesterol OR is about 1.3 per ln-PFAS in a PFOS/PFHxS-dominated mixture. Shanghai selected low-concentration PFBS (AOR 1.64/1.81) while the highest-median compound, PFOA at 6.98 ng/ml, was not the selected HDP predictor. Age-5 overweight associations differed by country. A single 'PFAS odds ratio' is not portable.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
PFAS logistic results do not agree on which compound or outcome carries the signal. Ronneby's high-cholesterol OR is about 1.3 per ln-PFAS in a PFOS/PFHxS-dominated mixture. Shanghai selected low-concentration PFBS (AOR 1.64/1.81) while the highest-median compound, PFOA at 6.98 ng/ml, was not the selected HDP predictor. Age-5 overweight associations differed by country. A single 'PFAS odds ratio' is not portable.
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