PLASTIC PACKAGING CAUSE FOR OBESITY AND DIABETES?

It is unimaginable as to why hundreds of chemicals are allowed for use by the food industry for one reason or the other. While pharmaceutical industry is shackled, forcing it to be more careful and cautious in using different ingredients in medicine formulations, food industry is allowed to get away, mostly under the so called GRAS provision under which proof of safety is not insisted on!  The result is that many of the food ingredients had to be withdrawn after consumers were exposed to their dangers unnecessarily. Latest to join the list of monster chemicals are phthalates and Bisphenol A. Though indications about their suspect safety credentials were known earlier, they were allowed to be used for technical reasons ignoring the harm they could bring upon the consumers. The dangers posed by the above chemicals have been highlighted succinctly in a recent report which has some credibility. 

"Children exposed to two chemicals commonly used in food packaging are more likely to be obese or show signs of diabetes precursors than those with lower exposure, new research suggests. Researchers found urine levels of one type of phthalate, used to soften plastic, were tied to a higher risk of insulin resistance among teenagers. Based on data from the same large nutrition survey, another study group linked bisphenol A, or BPA - used to line aluminum cans - to obesity and larger waists in youth. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in six U.S. children and teenagers is now obese. "Clearly unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity are the drivers of this epidemic … but increasingly environmental chemicals are being identified as possible contributors," Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a pediatrician from New York University, said. He and his colleagues analyzed data from a nationally-representative health and nutrition survey conducted in 2003 to 2008, which included urine and blood tests for 766 adolescents aged 12 to 19. They found urinary levels of one particular type of phthalate, known as Di-2-ethylhexylphthalate (DEHP), were closely tied to a teenager's chance of having insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. Just under 15 percent of study participants with the lowest one-third of DEHP levels were insulin resistant, compared to almost 22 percent of those with the highest levels. DEHP, Trasande said, is often used to soften plastic bottles. It's used in plastic that is printed with the number 3 for recycling. The researchers said their findings don't prove that eating food packaged with phthalates causes insulin resistance. For example, it's possible children who are already insulin-resistant have unhealthier eating habits and eat and drink more packaged products - thus the higher phthalate levels in their urine. But Trasande told Reuters Health the chemical may influence how the body secretes insulin in response to sugar. Because of that, he tells parents to avoid buying plastics made with DEHP. "I advise them not to wash plastic containers in the dishwasher," he said. And, "When the plastic is clearly etched or damaged, it's time to throw it away." For a separate study published concurrently in Pediatrics, Dr. Joyce Lee from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and her colleagues used nutrition survey data through 2010 to compare BPA levels in the urine of six- to 18-year-olds with other health measures. In their analysis of 3,370 kids, BPA - an industrial chemical that may mimic estrogen in the body - was not linked to insulin resistance or blood sugar. But children with higher BPA levels were more likely to be obese, and tended to have a higher waist circumference-to-height ratio, than those with the lowest levels."

The particular variety of Phthalate-DEHP is implicated in developing insulin resistance leading to diabetic conditions, especially among children. Similarly BPA is now being confirmed as an obesogenic chemical causing early obesity among children. On the face of the fact that almost 20% of American kids are obese and the consumption of processed foods is very high in that country, there is a definite cause for alarm. It is high time that safety authorities wake up to this shocking reality and revisit the issue of safety of all food ingredient currently allowed for use by the industry before further damage is caused to the innocent public.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

PHTHALATES AND OZONIZATION-UNKNOWN HAZARDS

Use of plastics in the day to day life of human beings has become so omnipotent that one cannot imagine the effect of a future ban on these ubiquitous material on the quality of life. While the chemicals used in manufacturing plastics pose safety problems of different dimensions, especially in food contact applications, the near intractability of plastics present an entirely different problem to the environment. Increasing safety concerns are making the manufacturers more and more cautious in reducing likely toxic effects of migrant chemicals from plastics, the eventual drying up of fossil fuel wells will force the industry to look for more sustainable sources for making acceptable substitutes. One of the widely occurring leached chemicals from plastics in the environment, Phthalates are biologically immune to degradation and can accumulate in future to intolerable levels with grave health debilitating effect. The Ozone treatment which is becoming a standard disinfection technique was expected to destroy Phthalates. But recent findings that the oxidative artifacts from these contaminants may pose some hazard is some what disturbing.

"Phthalate esters or phthalates are widely used to improve the flexibility and softness of PVC resins, cellulose and other polymers. However, because of their high levels of production and utilisation, leached phthalates have become persistent organic pollutants in aquatic environments. Several of these chemicals have been classified as endocrine disrupters by the World Health Organisation. Some of the most frequently identified phthalates in environmental samples are short-chained esters such as diethyl phthalate (DEP), which originates from discharged waste water and leaching from plastic products. Studies have also shown that DEP is difficult to degrade biologically and photochemically. The release of DEP into water environments is therefore an emerging issue for public health. Advanced oxidation technologies such as the ozone process are widely used in drinking water and waste water treatment because of their strong oxidation and disinfection capabilities. The ozone process could have potential for the elimination of DEP in water. However, some highly persistent unknown by-product peaks of DEP formed during oxidation have been detected and some by-products are thought to remain in solution. There is therefore a need to examine the DEPozonation degradation pathway".

Though the above report does not still cause any panic because of the inconclusive nature of the studies, it is necessary to get to the bottom of this issue through more studies. Phthalate contamination is a man-made problem and in the long run it is better if the use of these chemicals in plastics are progressively shunned and the industry is bound to work in this direction once the full ramifications of the impact of Phthalates become apparent. With the pace of research and development on biodegradable plastics picking up rapidly, synthetic materials made from fossil fuels can be expected to decline significantly in the coming years.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com