MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — Statins and beta blockers, the cardiovascular drugs, are finding their way into West Virginia fish, West Virginia University researchers found.
The study, conducted by Joseph Kingsbury, a doctoral student in natural resources science, and Kyle Hartman, professor of wildlife and fisheries resources at the WVU Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, was written up in WVUToday.
Beta blockers are prescribed to patients with high blood pressure and statins prevent the synthesis of cholesterol; the study found the drugs were present in fish from the West Fork and Tygart Valley rivers in Weston and Elkins, respectively.
Water treatment plants don’t have an effective way to remove those pharmaceuticals or their derivatives, so they end up in waterways; while researchers say the drugs break down quickly, they’re also widely prescribed, so water treatment facilities continuously deposit them.
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Fish need cholesterol to store lipids.
“For us, lipids are often considered bad,” Hartman said in the release. “But lipids get fish through the winter and lean times. I was concerned we might be seeing eroding fish populations and not really have any idea why, because it’s not outright killing them.”
Both beta blockers and statins are processed in the liver and can accumulate there; their findings showed that in some cases, the fish’s organs were discolored and the fish had parasites.
“None looked super healthy compared to traditional fish livers,” Kingsbury said. “And pharmaceuticals are very resilient. They’re meant to be saved, to go on our shelves and not break down over the years. We found quite a few sub-lethal effects.”
Their research is expected to continue and to focus on how pharmaceutical drug exposure affects fish eggs and embryos, as previous studies have shown statins and beta blockers might play a role in the formation and development of fish embryos.
“Pharmaceuticals are notorious for altering our DNA,” Kingsbury said. “Fish are no different.”
Researchers are also planning on looking at chronic toxicity over multiple generations of fish, and hope their findings can steer physicians toward compounds and drugs that may be less harmful.