Re: Should have been done long ago.......

"Don't lose sight of the forest through the trees..."

Excellent!

This thread began as an observation and musings upon MH's assertion that his son's small penis is a direct result of his wife's supposed "toxic levels of iodine".

Your observations are right on! There are many factors that could lead to this condition, for example, exposure to dioxins:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed


1. Endocr J. 2005 Feb;52(1):83-8.

Association of micropenis with Pro185Ala polymorphism of the gene for aryl
hydrocarbon receptor repressor involved in dioxin signaling.

Soneda S, Fukami M, Fujimoto M, Hasegawa T, Koitabashi Y, Ogata T.

Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, National Research Institute for Child
Health and Development, Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan.

The prevalence of undermasculinized external genitalia has increased in several
countries including Japan, and this phenomenon has primarily been ascribed to the
deleterious effects of environmental endocrine disruptors such as dioxins. To
examine a possible role of the genetic susceptibility to dioxins in the
development of micropenis (MP), we studied the Arg554Lys polymorphism of the gene
for aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) and the Pro185Ala polymorphism of the gene
for aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor (AHRR), in 73 boys with MP (34 boys with
mild MP from -2.1 to -2.5 SD and 39 boys with severe MP below -2.5 SD) and 80
control males (50 boys and 30 fertile adult males). The allele and genotype
frequencies of the AHR polymorphism were comparable between the two groups of
males, but those of the AHRR polymorphism were significantly different, with the
Pro allele and the Pro/Pro genotype being more frequent in boys with MP than in
control males (P-value: 0.0029 for the allele frequency and 0.011 for the
genotype frequency). In addition, both polymorphisms were comparable in the
allele and genotype frequencies between boys with mild MP and those with severe
MP and between control boys and control fertile adult males. The results suggest
that the AHRR Pro185Ala polymorphism may constitute a susceptibility locus for
the development of MP in response to dioxins.


PMID: 15758562 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


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