First posted Sep 29, 2024
Decades ago I would point out that phthalates had been found in antarctic snow and the Amazon rain forest. I would comment that those chemicals were considered completely harmless, but if there turned out to be long term health effects the situation could be ugly. Wellll, guess what… Here is an update on that conversation.
There is a growing health concern, and one that is not easily fixed. There is a real good article in the February 2024 issue of Consumer Reports titled “How to Eat Less Plastic”.
Plastics contain chemicals to give them better properties, like being more flexible. These chemicals are called plasticizers. Two categories of plasticizers are bisphenols and phthalates. The exception is silicone, which looks like a plastic or rubber, but is much safer, and more expensive.
Studies have shown that long term exposure to these can contribute to health problems. These chemicals can alter hormone levels which contribute to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, some cancers, birth defects, premature birth, neurodevelopmental disorders, and infertility.
Unfortunately, plasticizers are everywhere. They are in the snow at the south pole, in the soil in the amazon rain forest, in oceans, and in the dust in your home. Of course the highest concentrations are in plastic products, and thus in foods packaged in plastic. These chemicals are in nearly all plastics. If you have ever wiped a hazy film off the inside of your windshield on a summer day, that was phthalates out gassing from plastic parts in the car interior. If you see old plastics that are cracked or crumbling, that is what happens when they have lost their plasticizers over the years. Plasticizers are also in fragrances. Flexible plastics have the most plasticizers, but there are still some in hard plastics. Microwave safe plastics are safer than cheap plastics. Food in cans isn’t necessarily better since the processing plants used plastic tubing, rubber conveyor belts, workers wear vinyl gloves, and the food itself was exposed to plasticizers before it was harvested.
There are have been some regulations set about safe levels of these chemicals. That has done some good as the levels of bisphenols in many foods have dropped since 2009 (but no improvement in phthalate levels). However, research is showing that the regulations may not be strict enough, so what is currently considered safe may still have long term effects. Because the health risk is a long term effect of low level dosage, it’s difficult to figure out whether or not it contributed to the health of any given patient, or what safe levels are.
It is impossible to avoid plasticizers, but there are some things you can do to cut down your exposure.
- Avoid plastic food storage containers. Steel or glass containers, even with a plastic top, are much better.
- Avoid fast foods.
- Limit high-fat foods. Plasticizers accumulate even more in fat.
- Eat fresh, minimally processed food. That cuts down on chemicals from plastics, but requires more precautions over exposure to pesticides.
- Use kitchen utensils that are made of wood, steel, or silicone.
- Use a wood cutting board, not a plastic one.
- Use water bottles made of glass or stainless steel.
- Silicone gloves are much safer than vinyl or latex or nitrile gloves. However, silicone gloves are often thicker, more expensive, and less comfortable to wear. Fortunately silicone gloves are washable and tend to last a long time. In situations where gloves are recommended or required, any type of gloves are still safer than no gloves.
- Avoid fragrances
- Open windows in nice weather.
- Even in poor weather, opening the windows for a few minutes while you vacuum
helps clear the dust. - Use a robot vacuum cleaner.
- Avoid vinyl. Put in ceramic or wood floors instead of vinyl flooring. Put in a glass shower wall, instead of a vinyl curtain.
Unfortunately, this is a difficult one to pin down. If you get one of these health conditions, there is no test to tell you if it was from plasticizers, if the plasticizers made it happen ten percent sooner or worse, or if they had nothing to do with it.