Early telarche symptoms in children and their relations to Zearalenon contamination in foodstuffs

Authors observed increasing number of early telarche/mastopathy patients in the South-East Region of Hungary since 1989. Parents reported unusually frequently high amount of ''healthy'' foods in the diet of the patients. The disease is mentioned as harmless in the literature, but differential diagnostic measures are necessary to exclude premature puberty or malignancies. A few epidemics were reported in the last decades, but etiology of the disease remain unknown. Authors supposed possibility of Fusarium toxin contamination of foods in etiology of this epidemic. Extremly high concentration of estrogenic Fusarium toxins was found lit the analysis in this cereal products. In competitive receptor-assay system on human myometrial tissue high affinity of Zearalenon and Zearalenol was experienced to estrogen receptors. Serum samples of patient were investigated in HPLC-system. 5 of 36 examined serum samples contained 18.9-103.5 mcg/l Zearalenon. According to our knowledge this is the first time to demonstrate estrogenic Fusarium toxins not only in foodstuffs, but on human estrogen receptors and in the sera of premature telarche patients.