One of my favorite journals is Environmental Health Perspectives whose articles can be downloaded free of charge from their website. It is the one journal I most look forward to reading each month.  In today’s blog, I’ll list the articles which I think are the most relevant regarding human health from the December 2006 issue. Click on the topics you’re interested in and you will be led to the actual article.

Pollutants May Put On The Pounds – (pg A692) – The evidence keeps piling up linking environmental toxins and obesity.

Unidentified Inert Ingredients in Pesticides: Implications for Human and Environmental Health – Caroline Cox and Michael Surgan. This article suggests that all pesticides should have all ingredients assessed for safety and not just the active components.

Global Environmental Change: What Can Health Care Providers and the Environmental Health Community Do About It Now? – Brian S. Schwartz, Cindy Parker, Thomas A. Glass, and Howard Hu – This article is a call to action for health care providers to help educate the public about the risks of global warming.

Whole-Body Lifetime Occupational Lead Exposure and Risk of Parkinson’s Disease – Steven Coon, Azadeh Stark, Edward Peterson, Aime Gloi, Gene Kortsha, Joel Pounds, David Chettle, and Jay Gorell – In this article the authors report on the association of lead exposure to the development of Parkinson’s disease.

Exposures to Environmental Toxicants and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in U.S. Children – Joe M. Braun, Robert S. Kahn, Tanya Froehlich, Peggy Auinger, and Bruce P. Lanphear – Here we see direct correlations between exposure to prenatal tobacco and lead and the development of ADHD.

Response Inhibition During Differential Reinforcement of Low Rates (DRL) Schedules May Be Sensitive to Low-Level Polychlorinated Biphenyl, Methylmercury, and Lead Exposure in Children – Paul W. Stewart, David M. Sargent, Jacqueline Reihman, Brooks B. Gump, Edward Lonky, Thomas Darvill, Heraline Hicks, and James Pagano – Low levels of toxins such as PCB, methylmercury and lead are potentially harmful in children (no kidding) is what this article suggests.