Talk:Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins

message: Supposedly, consumption of olestra can help decrease dioxin levels in the body; however, I do not know if this has been completely confirmed.
Comment: Apparently, the one way to lower one's body burden of dioxin is to lose fat in which the dioxin bio-accumulates.  
If Olestra is a fat substitute, and if, as charged, a side-effect of Olestra is diarrhea, that may be the source of claims about Olestra decreasing dioxin levels.   For that matter, dieting or a long walk, run, or bike ride would reduce dioxin levels...unless you did the exersises along an exhaust spewing highway.
Wrong....Olestra works because it is a fat.  Dioxin is lipophilic.  Walking etc would have no affect on dioxin levels.
Actually, excercise or any other mobilization of fat reserves (such as breast feeding) will serve to temporarily increase an individual's circulating dioxin level (as well as any other lipophilic compound) as the fat is moved to the blood stream. Might be a mechanism to increase circulating dioxin concentrations to toxic levels. Jed 06:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Two Austrian women poisoned by Dioxin where put on a diet of fat-free Pringles, doctors hypothesized that the indigestible Olestra fat would mop up fat soluble TCDD, but they stopped eating Pringles after a few weeks, proving that eating Pringles for a month is more unpleasant that Chloracne. But a guy in Australia ate Pringles for 2 years and his dioxin levels dropped dramatically. --Diamonddavej (talk) 03:06, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dioxins and Olestra 

message: I added a note about dioxins in the Spolana chemical plant. I have written that parts of the factory are contaminated since 60's. This was changed to "were contaminated in 60's". I want to be sure that this mean the same: certain parts of the factory are still contaminated even after 40 years. Is it clear? Miraceti 11:39, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dioxins in Spolana 

message: What is "body burden"?  I guess it is some kind of technical term, but is not defined in the article.  Can it be either defined or replaced with non-technical language please?  Quasicharacter 05:13, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Body burden means the total concentration of a (toxic) substance in the body at a given time. Graufuchs 20:07, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Body Burden? 

message: This article claims that dioxins have no effect on the unborn child, and takes 2,4,5-T (a component of Agent Orange) as an example (the massive use in the Vietnam war). I read that there are MANY birth defects, probably due to the byproducts of the herbicide, which is TCDD. I refer to the Wikipedia page for Agent Orange and two websites about people still having to cope with the effects: 
http://vietnam-dioxine.org
http://vava.portal.vinacomm.com.vn
:Neither of those sites are in English so they're probably not going to be of much help. -- FP 17:03, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
::They are in English as soon as you click the appropriate links...
Hi, I'm not an expert, but in NZ we had some alleged (but highly likely) cases of many birth defects as a result of dioxin poisoning.  The govt sprayed gorse using 2,4,5-T containing dioxin and soon after a number of cases of birth defects started popping up, including spina bifida and acephalism (children born without brains).  We had 8 quite localised cases in a month; 8 times the national yearly average for these types of birth defects.  There was even one street that had 3 cases of acephalism.  This is very strong inductive evidence; although it is not scientific evidence.--124.197.33.229 06:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dioxins and birth defects 

message: When this article menstions "Residential wood burning" it implies that burning wood creates dioxins when in fact it is the burning of trash and treated wood products in fireplaces that creates dioxins.
In actuallity Dioxins can be found in all residue from burning, even a simple non-polluted tree limb.  There have been tests conducted on many pottery fragments and earthenware fragments dating back to the era of the fertile crescent that have shown the presence of Dioxins (albeit trace amounts due to half-lifes).  Dioxins are one of the key chemical classes focused upon in courses covering toxic substances in the environment, and are some of the oldest poisonous compounds known (even though they were not known as to what they were until modern science). Das Nerd 02:11, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Plastic trash bags are typically made of some form of polyethylene, not polyvinyl chloride.  Polyethylene does not have chlorine in its chemical structure.  H Padleckas 20:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources of Dioxin 

message: Could someone who knows add more technical information on the effect of dioxin on biological processes? Exactly why is it toxic in a certain dosage? Thanks.   Anonymous 23:14, 27 Apr 2006
Well, a discussion of how dioxin affects biological processes cannot occur without introduction of the Aryl hydrocarbon Receptor (AhR).  What makes dioxin the paradigm in toxicology is that dioxin (2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) is thought to mediate most if not all of its effects through one target in the cell: AhR, a nuclear receptor.  "Nuclear" refers to the fact that AhR can move out of the cytoplasm and into the nucleus of the cell to turn on certain genes, most notably the cytochrome P450s.  
AhR is a very fascinating protein, and toxicologists can use dioxin to study how the AhR works in living systems.  To date, every species of fish and animal studied has some form of the AhR.  So it stands to reason that because AhR is so widely conserved across species, that AhR must be extremely important.  Indeed, AhR has been shown to participate in the normal development of the major blood vessels in the livers of mice.  Other roles for AhR in development and in other natural processes are still be investigated.     
So the short answer to your first question (what is the effect of dioxin on biological processes) is that dioxin activates the AhR - dioxin binds to AhR and AhR is then able to move into the nucleus to interact with genes in the nucleus.  Thus, Activation of AhR by dioxin turns on certain genes.  Many of these "certain genes" encode proteins which are involved in xenobiotic metabolism (the cytochrome P450s).  In essence, xenobiotic metabolism is how cells rid themselves of foreign compounds.  
The short answer to your second question (why is it toxic in a certain dose range) is that higher doses of dioxin means more molecules of AhR will be activated and this can severly disrupt a cell's normal function by inappropriately turning on genes.  Another explanation is that excessive activation of AhR disturbs the normal distribution of ARNT, a protein that partners with the AhR.  This imbalance in ARNT can be detrimental to the cell because ARNT interacts with several other proteins which affect gene expression in the cell.  
Adipocytes 02:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dioxin's effect on biological processes 

message: I am completely ignorant on this subject, so could someone who knows please expand the article to answer these questions? First, do dioxins only occur naturally in the environment or are they also manufactured? If they are manufactured, what are they used for? The article as it stands today only seems to address the health effects on people, nothing more. Thanks! --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 13:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Dioxins are not naturally found in the environment, they are a result of unintentional man-made chlorination processes. 2,3,7,8 TCDD has no uses, but Dioxane does.Joeylawn 06:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Good point, Jed, about possible natural dioxin production. Dioxin seems to be easily formed when burning organic material with chlorinated substances. Joeylawn 22:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More clarification, please 

message: The statement that there are 75 cogeners is not referenced.  My own count suggests there should be 40. ...
I would like to know where the number 75 comes from.  When I googled it, all I found were copies of the wikipedia page.  
This is similar to the question voiced above: 
"Chlorine atoms are attached to the basic structure at any of 8 different places on the molecule, numbered from 1 to 10."
err... you will not find anyone mentioning a 2,3,5,7,8 - PCDD.  Nomad sotnos (talk) 14:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There are 75 congeners of PCDD and 135 congeners of PCDF (210 in total). --Leyo 16:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

text: See here or here. --Leyo 06:51, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Congeners 

message: Many, many vegetables contain fat, wouldn't dioxins accumulate in them? This smacks of vegan propaganda to me.--Rotten 15:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why only animal sources of fat? 

message: Are dioxins with fluorine, bromine, or iodine as toxic as the polychlorinated dioxins? Also, is the base compound dibenzo-p-dioxin (, without any halogen atoms) toxic? Polonium 15:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other dioxins 

message: I spent a great deal of time considering this change.  Since a citation is still missing from the "cancer" line item under "health effects", the portion stating that dioxin has been shown to cause cancer was patently incorrect (at least it is, insofar as the project is concerned, until a reference is added).  Having removed that, and unable to come up with a NPOV way to state both that some people have asserted it causes cancer and that no references for that exist, I was left with
 Dioxin is the popular name for a family of chemicals released from a wide array of sources.
I hope you agree with me that that communicates very little information at all, so I reverted the change wholesale.
I would strongly support a good one- or two-sentence summary at the top of the article, but I cannot support this particular one.  I hope I have made it clear why.
Jouster  (whisper) 18:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reversion of the "first line for the layman" 

message: Reading the page closely, we have two links that say cancer is NOT a result of human exposure to dioxin, and none saying that it is.  Any opposition to changing "health effects" to remove cancer and reword the "cancer in lab animals" statement, using the existing two sources as refs?  TBH, I'm terrible with the <ref> tag, so if someone else is reading this and feeling nice.... Jouster  (whisper) 19:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I need to read further into some of the specific literature to find a reference. This is still a hotly debated and researched topic - does dioxin cause cancer in humans? The new update of the "Veterans and Agent Orange"  NAS report may have something to say on the topic. It's due out shortly, I believe. Jed 03:44, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Someone was nice enough to drop in a <ref>, but it was, again, for lab animals.  I edited the line accordingly, for now.  The real problem is, it's pretty darn hard to run a credible, controlled study on something like this in a human population without violating every medical ethics rule in existence.  I guess I'll wait for the report, and go from there.  Jouster  (whisper) 08:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cancer 

message: Article looks good.  Soon I will try to standardize all references in the text. 74.69.33.164 21:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: This modification changed "Dioxins are carcinogenic in higher amounts" to "Dioxins are carcinogenic at very small concentrations".  Since neither one was sourced, and one was the exact opposite of the other, I just removed the statement wholesale.  Feel free to re-add with a citation. Jouster  (whisper) 20:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Toxicity 

message: As currently stated "Dioxin is the common name for the family of halogenated organic compounds, the most common consisting of polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) and polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDDs)."  
Dioxin is the common name for...polychlorinated dibenzodioxins, not furans.  This needs to be clarified.  Likewise, why is there now a picture of a furan on the dioxin page.  That needs to be removed as well.  I also think the space filling model needs to be removed from the intro section since that is for a specific compound.  Demantos 18:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll blithely assume you know what the hell you're talking about and heartily endorse this cleanup!  Jouster  (whisper) 19:26, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: He does. Furans should have their own page, even though the toxicity, decontamination, etc are essentially the same.Jed 14:27, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro statement wrong

message: Removed external links that were cited in the article. Demantos 15:18, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: External Links

message: :This comment was misplaced at Talk:Dioxin (chemical) (orginally [Talk:Dioxin] before page move). I have copied it here Power.corrupts (talk) 09:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: With a controversial and complicated subject its best to stick to consensus reports, and provide a few quality papers that show differing points of view in order to illustrate areas of disagreement & a lack of knowledge. Dioxins remind me of the controversy over Radiation - Linear No Threshold, threshold and hormesis (Vitamin-R). Well anyway, I see Zambon et al. (2007) are claiming that incinerators producing 4.2 fg/m3 Dioxin increase cancer rate, this is ~12,500 times lower than the dioxin levels in tobacco smoke (Muto & Takazawa 1989). Sounds a little suspicious. It illustrates why an article should to stick to consensus reports, as people can select any old paper from any old journal supporting whatever point they like to promote. --Diamonddavej (talk) 02:53, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Since the December 08 Irish pork contamination incident... 

message: The many types dioxins are quite confusing. I have created the page List of dioxins a a first attempt to provide an overview, also of the toxicity equivalents.  Comments please?  Power.corrupts (talk) 15:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New page - [[List of dioxins]] 

message: Two claims are made in this article-
1.) Dioxins are created whenever organic compounds are burnt at low temperatures in the presence of chlorine or chlorine compounds;
2.) Dioxins are persistent in soil.
If both of these are true, we would expect parts of the world where wildfires are common (and have been historically) to have extremely high concentrations of dioxins in the soil, since chlorine salts are present naturally in plant material. Is it true that such parts of the world have high concentrations of dioxins in their soil, and does it cause problems for the flora and fauna living there?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dom.uk.1 (talk • contribs) 19:59, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Natural Sources of Dioxins 

message: I'm not sure I buy this paragraph from the article:
::"In 2007 in Italy thousands of tonnes of foul-smelling refuse are piled up in Naples and its surrounding villages, defacing entire neighbourhoods. Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins are found in animals and humans over lethal dose[63].Sources of Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins was identified in refuse and pvc combustion and industrial refuse disposal in uncontrolled industrial waste disposal. In numbers animals and humans was found lethal dose. "
First sentance, so far so good.  Second sentance, not so good.  It is completely false.  After reading the link in [63], all I can deduce is that higher than acceptable levels were found in animal by-products, but not in the animals themselves or in humans.  The third sentance isn't sourced, and judging by it's grammatical construction, seems to be fabricated from thin air.  The article even goes on to mention that there's been no scientific evidence to link the two events.  The fourth sentance sounds equally made-up.  Heck, what it's suggesting isn't even possible- that lethal (ie, enough to kill you) doses were found in animals and humans (when nothing died or was even tested).  I'll leave it in for a while in case someone honestly meant to add this, but had a really loose grip of the English language (and better sources).  Lime in the Coconut 19:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italian incident 

message: http://wikidraft.org/wiki/Polychlorinated_dibenzodioxins looks like a not correct licensed copy. --Itu (talk) 03:30, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clone 

message: There are now several articles on dioxins, mechanisms are mostly under 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, general features of the group as well as toxic equivalence factors under dioxins and dioxin-like compounds, and there is a short article on polychlorinated dibenzofurans. It would be easier to the readers to concentrate the specific material under 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, and material relevant to all compounds of the group under dioxins and dioxin-like compounds. There could be a short description of polychlorinated dibenzodioxins, similar to that of polychlorinated dibenzofurans.Viinamakelainen (talk) 19:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: See also two threads above and here. BTW: In de.wikipedia, the relevant article is on PCDD and PCDF together. --Leyo 20:37, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup: redundance on dioxins

message: The article mentions "Spolana stopped manufacture of 2,4,5-T (most of which was supplied to the US military in Vietnam)." While I don't doubt the manufacture of 2,4,5-T at Spolana and it's subsequent contamination, I find the claim that the US was purchasing 2,4,5,-T from a Soviet block country in the 1960's to use against the Soviet-supported North Vietnamese very suspect. The reference (which seems to be only a blog entry anyway) does mention Vietnam, but I am unable to read the entire reference as it is in Czech. Can anyone provide any insight into this claim? 24.121.33.200 (talk) 03:58, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spolana 2,4,5-T sales to the US

message: "1,4-dioxin" (actually, 1,4-dioxane) should not be linked to this page. It is a completely different chemical!
Deana Crumbling, M.S.
USEPA
crumbling.deana@epa.gov  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.29.5 (talk) 13:13, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The chemical nomenclature of these compounds is being used properly in this article.  Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins are derivatives of 1,4-dioxin, not 1,4-dioxane.  Dioxanes do not have the double bonds that dioxin and polychlorinated dibenzodioxin derivatives have.  -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:20, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "1,4-dioxin" is wrong!! The proper name is 1,4-dioxane. 

message: I've edited this section a little. All of the information was duplicated in Agent Orange, and the section did not make it clear that the actual herbicides are not dioxins themselves, and the concern was dioxin contamination as a result of the manufacture process. -- Will-h (talk) 12:02, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Agent Orange 

message: The article mentions toxicity as a contaminant of 2,4,5-T, but not the fact that 2,4,5-T is also toxic.  Seems to me, that would also be important. Gah4 (talk) 02:05, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relative toxicity 

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