3,600 chemicals from food packaging were found in the human body, 80 of them are dangerous
In human tissue samples, 3,601 chemicals were found that could have gotten there from food packaging, as well as other surfaces that come into contact with food. This is a quarter of all chemical compounds that have contact with food, that is, from food products, these compounds can enter the body and stay in it long enough to be detected in tissues. Moreover, at least 80 of these compounds pose a significant danger to humans. Such a study was published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology.
What can harm chemicals in food?
A total of about 12-14 thousand different chemical compounds are used in the production of food products during their production, storage, packaging and serving. They are called food contact chemicals (FCC). At the same time, for many of them there is no information about the ability to penetrate into food, presence in the body or dangerous properties. Therefore, the researchers compared the data on the chemicals found in the body tissues of different people with the list of known FCCs.
This is how the FCChumon database was created, which provides information on FCCs detected in human samples. The 100 FCCs found in the human body can be potentially dangerous to humans, including causing mutations, neoplasms, and reproductive health disorders. Therefore, the authors of the study call for removing from food packaging those chemicals whose dangerous effect on the body has already been proven, as well as to investigate the safety of others even before they start to be used in the food industry.
- The presence of phthalate chemicals in food contact plastics can harm pregnant women. As it turned out, its content in the body of pregnant women caused about 10 percent of premature births in the United States. And the replacement with more "safe" analogues only increased the risk of such complications.
Share the news
