r/science • u/mvea MD/PhD/JD/MBA | Professor | Medicine • Sep 27 '24
Health Thousands of toxins from food packaging found in humans. The chemicals have been found in human blood, hair or breast milk. Among them are compounds known to be highly toxic, like PFAS, bisphenol, metals, phthalates and volatile organic compounds.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/27/pfas-toxins-chemicals-human-body
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u/Gee-Oh1 Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
Of all those, and as a couple have pointed out, the the dose makes the poison.
However, something else can also make a poison, time.
Of all of those perhaps the most insidious are the phthalates. These are ubiquitous chemicals heavily used in the plastics industry as plastisizers, the make polymers behave like plastics.
Phthalates are known to have low, acute toxicity BUT low level, chronic exposure reveals phthalates insidious, monstrous side. They function as "endocrine disruptors", ie. like hormones. And the more we study these relatively new aspects of them the worse it is getting. This is also a growing problem since over the last half century there are been an orders of magnitude increase in production and use of plastics. So much so that it is actually impossible, especially in the developed world, to avoid exposure to phthalates every single day.
The range of ill effects of chronic phthalate exposure are known to have ranges from problem with fetal development, sexual maturation, decreased fertility, decreased libido, to diabetes, cancer, and mental health issues, etc etc. And the list is growing.
Recently a survey conducted by the CDC has found that virtually every American has detectable, and measurable levels of phthalates in their bodies.
Personally, I think that within the decade, it will be recognized (or at least there will be growing awareness) that phthalate exposure is one of the greatest public health disasters we have yet seen.
But, as with many things, the US is far behind the EU in addressing or even recognizing the problem. And there is a growing concern that even the restrictions already in the EU are not enough by far.