I’m not fat! I just have phthalates!
I’m not sure if this type of thing could have been avoided if there was better regulation of toys. However, I’m inclined to think the answer is yes.
Child Obesity Is Linked to Chemicals in Plastics
By Jennifer 8. LeeExposure to chemicals used in plastics may be linked with childhood obesity, according to results from a long-term health study on girls who live in East Harlem and surrounding communities that were presented to community leaders on Thursday by researchers at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
The chemicals in question are called phthalates, which are used to to make plastics pliable and in personal care products. Phthalates, which are absorbed into the body, are a type of endocrine disruptor — chemicals that affect glands and hormones that regulate many bodily functions. They have raised concerns as possible carcinogens for more than a decade, but attention over their role in obesity is relatively recent.
“Child Obesity Is Linked to Eating Too Much”
That’s the headline I want to see. Or maybe…
“Child Obesity Is Linked to Sitting Around All Day”
“Adult Obesity Linked to Blogging”
I’m not sure I completely buy the link between phthalates and obesity. A lot of those things are true, they are endocrine disrupters, they are absorbed into the body but I think it may be our high calorie foods and sedentary lifestyles that are the biggest problem. More of correlation than causation?
Spoken like a true phthalates industry lackey.
KIDDING! 🙂
Actually, there is a correlation between the rise in obesity and the rise in the use of air conditioning.
And people with smaller hands live longer than those with larger hands.
(Women live longer than men.)
Correlation does not mean causation.
Chemicals in the inorganic realm tend to ionize when in water. Common table salt will separate into sodium and chorine ions in solutions but do not form the elements even in electrolysis of an aqueous solution. In the human body, a electrolytic balance between sodium and potassium ions is essential to our well being.
Organic compounds tend to be more complex and the acids and bases associated with these compounds tend to be weaker than their inorganic cousins.
The organic compounds tend to be chemically inert. Fill a plastic bottle with water and put it away sealed for a few days or decades. It will remain full if properly sealed. Fill it with hydrochloric acid and observe the same effect.
So how are not-reactive components used in the manufacture of plastics suppose to be hurting people? Is this not more junk science from the Neo-Luddites?
I have some background in Anat.Phys., Biology, Bio-Chemisty and Nutrition and I would say that phthalates’ role as endocrine disrupters is probably a very high contributor to obesity.
Skinny kids weren’t and aren’t always ‘super active’ (I am thinking of four siblings who favored my mom’s side of the family).
And exposure to Phthalates aren’t just from toys. It is a film that lines canned drinks and canned foods (not sure when it became ubiquitous in that use..1980s?).
Perhaps a look to China’s recent alarming increase in childhood obsesity could help narrow the question.
Are their trends correlated to populations using canned goods or other plastics or packaging that leeches phthalates into foodstuffs. Does China still have vast populations that are rural enough to create a contrasting sample of people who aren’t using these products? Maybe not.
Sorry Nancy, I am not sure why that comment above went into moderation, but I have released it.
Arthur, When I bought a teflon pan, there wasn’t any warnings on it. We now know that teflon is lethal when burning….gee….as if that won’t happen in a normal kitchen once in a while.
…plastics under different ‘conditions’ have a varying ability to leech. Heat is a factor in the release of a gas. Do the math. In children, epecially, you don’t need very much of a toxin to have it do a whole lot of bad things to the body.
Art,
Please don’t try to talk chemistry.
“Chemicals in the inorganic realm tend to ionize when in water.”
FALSE
Many salt do ionize in water, but there are many inorganic compounds that aren’t soluble. Call me when you get granite to dissolve in water. In fact, barium sulfate is used for imaging because even though barium is toxic it is so insoluble that it just passes through the body.
“Common table salt will separate into sodium and chorine ions in solutions but do not form the elements even in electrolysis of an aqueous solution.”
FALSE
Common table salt will ionize to sodium ion and chloride ion. Chlorine gas is produced by the electrolysis of NaCl in water.
Link
“Organic compounds tend to be more complex and the acids and bases associated with these compounds tend to be weaker than their inorganic cousins.”
That’s a pretty big overgeneralization. Trifluoroacetic acid, for example, is an extremely strong organic acid.
“The organic compounds tend to be chemically inert. Fill a plastic bottle with water and put it away sealed for a few days or decades. It will remain full if properly sealed. Fill it with hydrochloric acid and observe the same effect.”
FALSE
There of plenty of chemically reactive organic compounds. But a chemical can be inert and still cause problems. Benzene, for example, is relatively chemically inert, but is a carcinogen. There are also PAHs (polyaromatic hydrocarbons) and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) that fall into this category. Some inert compounds are converted into more toxic chemicals by the body. A simple example is methanol, which is converted into formaldehyde in the body. The toxicity of many halogenated solvents is caused by their conversion to reactive alkylating agents by cytochrome P450. Even an inert compound can interfere in a natural pathway by blocking an enzyme reactive site or a receptor.
Your example of water stored in plastic bottles for a long time is irrelevant. Storage time has to do with the water and air permeability of the plastic. Hydrochloric acid is generally stored in glass bottles.
So a) many organic chemicals are reactive and have dangerous biological effects, b) relatively unreactive molecules can be converted by the body into more dangerous chemicals and c) even if chemically unreactive, organic molecules are capable of reversibly binding to enzymes and receptors to wreak havoc. The idea of reversible binding is a major mode of action for many pharmaceutical compounds.
Phthalates are used as plasticizers (processing aids) in the manufacture of PVC (poly(vinylchloride) plastics (among other uses). The phthalates are not compatible with PVC and tend to leach out over time. That is how they get into the environment. Here is a good review of phthalates.
It’s not junk science by neo-luddites. It’s an issue of real concern. Our environmental exposure to chemicals are very high and we need to know what their effects are.
h/t My hubby helped me research this post.
Chinese children are starting to eat my high calorie type American food as well, Nancy.
beat down (get it?) beat DOWN
UI’s post should have been signed, “Summer Glau”, as per:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/venting.png
Thanks DD.
Also…the obesity trend is surely a combination of factors: of food habit and exercize as well as any one chemical’s influences. There’s been much study of effects high-fructose corn sugars in foods leading to obesity.
Don’t fuck with a chemist.
Well UI, that is the nature of the value of the kind of populations that are likely to be found in China. My assumption is that the ones gorging on Burger King will be those in the cities.
China is a country of many indigenous populations; some way out in the boonies still chugging on the way they have done for millenia.
[I first realized that there are very isolated groups of people in China reading about a benzene spill. The spill of 100 tons of benzene into a major northeastern river a few years ago had potentially disrupted the lives of the tribe along the river through the next decade – when the benzene supposedly would have dispersed enough to resume fishing from the river. The rural peoples ate the fish and sold it for money – their only livelihood.]
If there is some way to look at the obesity and separate out “the food environment”, then you get a narrowing of the question.
All I know is that I read that Chinese kids are getting fat. I haven’t seen any particular demographical information about those fat kids!
Nancy,
I don’t necessarily think you’re wrong, but I think it’s going to be hard to separate the causes. I think a bigger concern with phthalates is probably the sex/fertility effects.
You rock, UI! ( and your hubby)
Let me make this simple for you. Childhood obesity and phthalates. It’s what you get when you serve a Happy Meal with a toy. And that Happy Meal is the diet staple. So do we take the toy out?
Just like cavities with candy.
I leave you now to UI for ingredient analysis, and DelDem for disclaimers.
Joanne: I made the same joke about the link between Happy Meal plastic toys and childhood obesity t UI. Great minds think alike (and fools seldom differ).
Well you know I’m a UI fan. Maybe sometime we can all get together for drive thru!!
P.S. Funny you should post–I just addressed UI in the April 19th papers post!
Joanne, this is about what is absorbed into the body so it isn’t about McyDoo Meal Toys.
Nice try though.