This occurs when pesticides are ingested for a long time

Prolonged consumption of pesticides causes metabolic changes in mice, as it makes males fat and causes liver disturbances and a change in microbial activity in females, reported today A study

The experience of the National Institute of Research and Analysis of France (INRA) and the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) integrates into rodents' diet a "cocktail of pesticides " at a daily dose similar to that allowed for humans.

After a year of exposure is 30 years in the case of humans, it has been observed that male mice have doubled their weight compared to others who have received a normal diet.

This group also had diabetes and an accumulation of fats in the liver, while in women they were disturbed. Hepatic activity and changes in microbiotic activity

The study, conducted in the French city of Toulouse (south) and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, gave the mice a cocktail of six pesticides used to treat French apple trees and which was also found in the apples of the European Union.

Contrary to other surveys, with a single pesticide in a high dose, or by combining other risk factors, such as a high-fat diet he opted for this combination of several, explained biologist Laurence Payrastre, participant in the experiment.

Previous epidemiological studies have shown that organic foods have a lower risk of developing metabolic changes and the results of this research provide arguments for this theory, although it is tests with mice and not with humans, he explained.

ayrastre pointed out that the effects detected in mice are less related to the amount of pesticides ingested in food or water, but to "the prolongation of this intake over time ".

The differences between males and females may be due to the protection provided by estrogen in the latter and to a capacity different from that of detoxification (process of cleaning toxins in the body).

Experts now want to delve into found differences and conclusions to identify the "molecular determinants" that cause them and whether there would be a critical period of exposure to these compounds, such as pregnancy or death. lactation. EFE