We’re still making new discoveries about pregnancy.
Donghai Liang, associate professor of environmental health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, examines how exposure to certain chemicals may affect mothers and babies.
As an exposure scientist and molecular epidemiologist, Dr. Donghai Liang is particularly interested in characterizing the human exposome and elucidating the molecular mechanisms accounting for the complex health responses to diverse environmental exposures. His current research focuses on studying various ubiquitous pollutants, including air pollution and persistent organic pollutants, and the associated health effects in underserved and vulnerable populations. Using cutting-edge exposure assessment and high throughput omics technologies, Dr. Liang has incorporated high-resolution metabolomics and multi-omics integration into pioneering investigations on the molecular mechanisms and disease etiology associated with various environmental exposures. Dr. Liang has been elected to several national and international leadership positions in academic societies of exposure science, environmental epidemiology, and metabolomics, including Secretary and Academic Councilor of the International Society of Exposure Science (ISES), and Executive Committee Member for COnsortium of METabolomics Studies (COMETS). Dr. Liang is the recipient of the Joan M. Daisey Outstanding Young Scientist Award, the GDEH Department Teaching Award, and the inaugural RSPH Early Career Research Excellence Award.
Phthalates Can Affect Mother and Baby Biology
Findings from our recent research suggests that phthalates don’t just affect the biology of mothers—they can influence a baby’s metabolism at birth
This work—which was led by Dr. Susan Hoffman, a recent PhD graduate of the Epidemiology program at Emory—studied phthalates, chemicals commonly found in everyday items and personal care products like shampoos, soaps, and plastic containers. We are interested in investigating these chemicals because previous research has shown that they can interact with our hormones and might influence our health.
We found that babies born to mothers with higher phthalate levels had lower amounts of crucial molecular markers involved in brain development, specifically metabolites in tyrosine and tryptophan metabolism.
Higher phthalate levels were also associated with biological changes linked to poorer performance on a neurobehavioral test given to babies at 2-4 weeks of age, including lower information processing (or attention) and excitability (or arousal).
These findings are important because they suggest that a mother’s exposure to these chemicals while she is pregnant can influence her newborn’s metabolism, and that the exposure these babies experience can impact brain development.
Although exciting, these findings are in the early stages of research. Future work could follow babies with measured intrauterine exposure through their childhood to better understand whether these early impacts continue to affect brain development. It would also be important to examine if strategies could be developed to prevent the effects of these exposures.
So, what can you do with this information? If you want to lower your exposure as an individual, you can look at labels on the products you use in your daily life and consider switching to those that are phthalate-free. You can also store your food in glass, consider switching to glass baby bottles, and use non-plastic alternatives for water bottles.
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The Environmental Metabolomics and Exposomics Research Group at Emory
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