CLEVELAND — It's not uncommon to think of chemical exposure as a potential risk of cancer. Now, researchers at Case Western Reserve University found two classes of chemicals may be linked to damaging brain cells that could potentially cause neurodegenerative diseases, with their findings just published in the Nature Neuroscience journal.
The types of chemicals we're talking about are everywhere — organophosphate flame retardants found in your furniture and electronics or the quaternary ammonium compounds (quats) found in disinfecting cleaning supplies, personal hair products, and some mouthwash. These are the classes of chemicals researchers at Case think have the potential to damage brain cells that provide the protective coating around nerve cells.
"These are the cells that are destroyed in multiple sclerosis, and so what we've identified is chemicals in our environment that can harm the same cells that are lost in multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases," lead researcher Dr. Paul Tesar, the Dr. Donald and Ruth Weber Goodman Professor of Innovative Therapeutics and director of the Institute for Glial Sciences at the CWRU School of Medicine, said. "We now show that specific chemicals in consumer products can directly harm oligodendrocytes, representing a previously unrecognized risk factor for neurological disease."
Tesar says much more research is needed, and no direct correlation between the products and cells has been identified because they still don't know how much exposure is too much or what kind of exposure causes a higher risk.
The researchers used cellular and organoid systems in the laboratory to show that quaternary ammonium compounds cause oligodendrocytes to die, while organophosphate flame retardants prevented the maturation of oligodendrocytes. They demonstrated how the same chemicals damage oligodendrocytes in the developing brains of mice, and the researchers also linked exposure to one of the chemicals to poor neurological outcomes in children nationally.
"We found that oligodendrocytes — but not other brain cells — are surprisingly vulnerable to quaternary ammonium compounds and organophosphate flame retardants," Erin Cohn, lead author and graduate student in the School of Medicine's medical scientist training program, told 3News. "Understanding human exposure to these chemicals may help explain a missing link in how some neurological diseases arise."
"Moderation is key," Tesar added, while also suggesting switching to more natural types of cleaning supplies occasionally such as vinegar, isopropyl alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide.
"Isopropyl alcohol has been used as the most common disinfecting agent for for many, many years. It's what we use in the laboratory to disinfect everything."