Agricultural Anabolic Steroids Found to Regenerate in Aquatic Ecosystems WOW!

[BABY1]

TweetUS - New regulatory approaches may be needed to assess environmental risks of agricultural growth promoters following research that shows a newly found reversion mechanism allows unexpected persistence of the steroidal substances in aquatic environments.

Trenbolone is a federally approved drug widely used by the beef industry to promote weight gain and to increase feeding efficiency in cattle. The drug, although popular in the bodybuilding and weightlifting communities, and as an athletic performance enhancer, has long been banned for human use, and also is banned for agricultural uses in the EU. T

Trenbolone has been considered safe for ecosystems due to its initially rapid degradation, with studies pointing to an environmental half-life of less than a day. Studies have indicated that low concentrations of these endocrine disrupting environmental steroids affect fish, by reducing egg production of females and skewing the sex of some species.

"We investigated trenbolone, an anabolic steroid, and found that the photochemical breakdown isn't the end of its life cycle," Ed Kolodziej, co-author of the paper and environmental engineering professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, said. "

Our team found that these substances, after a rapid breakdown in sunlight, are capable of a unique transformation in aquatic environments under various temperature and light-cycle scenarios where the process is reversed."

Kolodziej, project leader of a collaborative multi-disciplinary research team that includes the University of Iowa and Truman State, said this newly found mechanism may account for unexplained observations of endocrine disruption in aquatic organisms.

"Right now, I'm not alarmed, just concerned and interested in defining the real ecological risks associated with the widespread use of potent steroidal pharmaceuticals," Kolodziej, who has been studying the effects of these substances on aquatic ecosystems for 12 years, said.

"This implies uncertainty with the current environmental risk assessments or ecotoxicology studies used by regulatory agencies, researchers and pharmaceutical companies."

The team used laboratory and field studies to explore the process. They found that the steroid's chemical compounds, while breaking down as expected in sunlight, never fully disappeared; even in conditions that mimicked surface water, a small percentage of the chemical structure remained after extended sunlight. The remains regenerated themselves at night, in some cases to up to 70 per cent of the metabolites initial mass." "

We knew something unique was going on," David Cwiertny, Kolodziej's research partner from the University of Iowa, said. "In daylight, it essentially hides in another form, to evade analysis and detection, and then at nighttime it readily transforms back to a state that we can detect."

The researchers validated the lab results with two experiments in the field – one with water taken from the Iowa River in Iowa City, Iowa and the other from samples taken from a collection pond at a cattle rangeland and research operation in California's Central Valley run by the University of California, Davis. Results of the research will be published in an article in the renowned journal Science – the weekly journal of AAAS, the science society – next month and are available immediately online in Science Express. -


See more at: https://www.thefishsite.com/fishnews/....Z3ypwXk8.dpuf

[BABY1]

TweetEnvironment: Streams at risk from ‘Frankenstein’ steroids | Summit County Citizens Voice

By Summit Voice
FRISCO — Along with remnants of makeup, antibiotics and even caffeine, researchers now say that some steroids are also likely to persist in the environment for a long time, posing a threat to water quality and aquatic species.
Some steroids may even “hide” by breaking down in sunlight, but regenerating at night, according to a new study, led by University of Iowa scientists that took a close look at the anabolic steroid trenbolone acetate and two other drugs.
The substance was long used by body builders but has been banned for human use. But it’s still used by the beef industry to promote weight gain and increase feeding efficiency in cattle.
In lab tests followed by field experiments, the researchers found that trenbolone does not fully break down in water as believed, retaining enough of a chemical residue to regenerate itself in the environment under certain conditions, to an extent that the drugs’ lives may be prolonged, even in trace amounts.
“We’re finding a chemical that is broadly utilized, to behave in a way that is different from all our existing regulatory and risk-assessment paradigms,” said David Cwiertny, assistant professor in engineering at the University of Iowa.
“What our work hopefully will do is help us better understand and assess the environmental fate of emerging contaminant classes. There are a variety of bioactive pharmaceuticals and personal-care products that we know are present in trace amounts in our water supply. We should use what we’re learning about trenbolone to more closely scrutinize the fate and better mitigate the impact of these products in the environment.”
The team found similar results for dienogest, a hormone used in a birth-control pill called Natazia, and dienedone, a banned anabolic steroid that has been marketed as a body-building supplement.
Trenbolone acetate is implanted in the ears of more than 20 million cattle in the United States, according to studies cited by the researchers in their paper. The drug is metabolized and then excreted by livestock, and makes its way into waterways mainly through runoff.
The steroid had been considered safe due to its rapid degradation, with studies pointing to an environmental half-life of less than a day. But there has been concern that it and other synthetic drugs, when found in concentrated amounts, can be harmful to aquatic species and the environment generally. Studies have pointed to steroids and other drugs’ effects on fish, through fewer eggs produced by females to skewing the sex of some species.
“We rarely see fish kills anymore, and we probably aren’t discharging many carcinogens into surface waters anymore. But I don’t believe this necessarily means that our water is safe for aquatic organisms,” said Edward Kolodziej, associate professor in engineering at the University of Nevada-Reno and the other corresponding author on the Science paper. “It just might be harder to characterize the adverse effects associated with contaminant exposures these days.”
Sunlight is one catalyst for breaking down compounds in the environment. But in this study, by simulating day and night in the lab, the research team found that the steroid’s chemical compounds never fully disappeared in daylight. Moreover, during a simulated night, under typical surface water conditions, some of the compounds regenerated themselves, to as much as 60 percent of the metabolite’s initial mass, when tracked over a 120-hour period.
“We knew something unique was going on,” Cwiertny says. “In daylight, it essentially hides in another form, to evade analysis and detection, and then at nighttime it readily grows back.”
More of the drug’s mass was regenerated – up to 88 percent in one highly acidic state (pH 2) – when water temperature was higher and when it was more acidic or alkaline, the team found.
The researchers validated the lab results with two experiments in the field – one with water culled from the Iowa River in Iowa City, Iowa and the other from samples taken from a collection pond at a cattle rangeland and research operation run by the University of California.