June 13, 2026

expert reaction to conference abstract from ENDO 2026 on anxiety-like behaviour in male offspring rats from mothers exposed to DEHP

An unpublished conference abstract presented at ENDO conference 2026 looks at anxiety behaviours of offspring rats from mothers exposed to the endocrine disruptor DEHP. 

Prof Jean Golding, Emeritus Professor of Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, University of Bristol, said:

“It is very difficult to judge the validity of this research from an abstract, especially when the length of abstract (or number of words) is perforce limited. Here there are a number of questions which, in a peer-reviewed published paper, would be available. For example:

• Why did the authors test the exposure of the mother rat to anxiety in the offspring? Was there a theoretical basis for this, or had it been shown by others?
• How many mothers and offspring were involved?
• Was there a control sample – and if so how were they selected, and how many were involved?
• Although the authors imply that the rat results are likely to be similar to those of humans, there is no evidence here to support that.

In general, I therefore conclude that these are interesting experimental results which  should be tested in humans first to assess whether there is indeed an association between maternal levels of phthalate and anxiety in the offspring. There are many longitudinal cohort studies with stored maternal blood samples which could be used to test this.”

The abstract ‘Anxiety-like Behavior Developed by Exposure to the Endocrine Disruptor DEHP in Male Rats’ by Osvaldo Juan Ponzo. et al. will be presented at the ENDO 2026 conference. The embargo lifted at 21:30 on Saturday 13th June 2026. 

Declared interests

Prof Jean Golding: “I have no declarations of interest.”