Hormone-disruptive plastic chemicals were linked to $249B in U.S. health care costs in 2018 alone

“CNN (1/11/24, LaMotte) reports, “By contributing to the development of chronic disease and death, a group of hormone-disruptive plastic chemicals is costing the U.S. health care system billions – over $249 billion in 2018 alone, a new study found.” The study “analyzed the impact of four groups of chemicals used in the production of plastic products: Flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDE; phthalates, which are used to make plastic more durable; bisphenols such as BPA and BPS used to create hard plastics and resins; and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS.” The findings were published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society.”

Comment: any guesses as to why pesticides were not included in the list? Other Endocrine Disruptors are heavy metals, chemicals in hair permanents, rocket fuel, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), triclosan, household insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, molluscides, and neutral surfactant alkylphenols.

Bottled water contains thousands of nanoplastics so small they can invade the body’s cells

“In a trailblazing new study, researchers have discovered bottled water sold in stores can contain 10 to 100 times more bits of plastic than previously estimated — nanoparticles so infinitesimally tiny they cannot be seen under a microscope.

At 1,000th the average width of a human hair, nanoplastics are so teeny they can migrate through the tissues of the digestive tract or lungs into the bloodstream, distributing potentially harmful synthetic chemicals throughout the body and into cells, experts say. One liter of water — the equivalent of two standard-size bottled waters — contained an average of 240,000 plastic particles from seven types of plastics, of which 90% were identified as nanoplastics and the rest were microplastics, according to the new study.

Microplastics are polymer fragments that can range from less than 0.2 inch (5 millimeters) down to 1/25,000th of an inch (1 micrometer). Anything smaller is a nanoplastic that must be measured in billionths of a meter. “This study, I have to say, is exceedingly impressive. The body of work that they put into this was really quite profound … I would call it groundbreaking,” said Sherri “Sam” Mason, director of sustainability at Penn State Behrend in Erie, Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the study. The new finding reinforces long-held expert advice to drink tap water from glass or stainless steel containers to reduce exposure, Mason said. That advice extends to other foods and drinks packaged in plastic as well, she added. “People don’t think of plastics as shedding but they do,” she said. “In almost the same way we’re constantly shedding skin cells, plastics are constantly shedding little bits that break off, such as when you open that plastic container for your store-bought salad or a cheese that’s wrapped in plastic.” Mason was the coauthor of a 2018 study that first detected the existence of micro- and nanoplastics in 93% of samples of bottled water sold by 11 different brands in nine countries. In that past study, Mason found each tainted liter of water held an average of 10 plastic particles wider than a human hair, along with 300 smaller particles. Five years ago, however, there was no way to analyze those tiny flecks or discover if there were more.”

Comment: toxins follow a U curve shape—they can bypass our defenses at low dose, and overwhelm them at high dose. In other words, they can be deleterious to our health in low as well as in high amounts.

Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals may lower odds for achieving pregnancy

Healio Minute, January 08, 2024

“Exposure to endocrine-disrupting phthalates may reduce women’s fecundability, or odds of becoming pregnancy during a menstrual cycle, according to findings published in J. Environmental Health Perspectives. “Phthalates are endocrine-disrupting chemicals that may have harmful impacts on menstrual cycle function and how long it takes a woman to become pregnant,” Carrie Nobles, PhD, assistant professor of environmental health sciences in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Healio. “Among 1,228 women enrolled in a unique preconception study, we found higher preconception exposure to phthalates to be associated with elevated levels of inflammation and oxidative stress, changes in reproductive hormones across the menstrual cycle, and a longer time to pregnancy.”

Researchers obtained data from 12,228 women who participated in the Effects of Aspirin in Gestation and Reproduction (EAGeR) trial from 2007 to 2011 (mean age, 28.7 years; 94.6% non-Hispanic white). In the trial, women aged 18 to 40 years with regular menstrual cycles between 21 and 42 days with no known diagnosis of infertility and one to two prior pregnancy losses were randomly assigned to 81 mg low-dose aspirin plus 400 µg folic acid or placebo plus folic acid at the beginning of the first observed menstrual cycle. Participants were followed for up to six menstrual cycles or throughout pregnancy if they became pregnant. Twenty phthalate metabolites were measured through urine samples collected at the beginning of the first menstrual cycle of follow-up. Fecundability was the number of cycles of follow-up a couple attempted to achieve pregnancy until a pregnancy occurred or the study ended. Pregnancy loss was the absence of pregnancy on clinical ultrasound at 6.5 weeks of gestation following a positive human chorionic gonadotropin test. Reproductive hormones and urinary creatinine were measured at four time points during each menstrual cycle. Of the participants, 64.9% became pregnancy during the study, and 23.6% of women who became pregnant had a pregnancy loss.

“It was striking how strongly phthalates were associated with inflammation, oxidative stress and reproductive hormones,” Nobles said. “Although our study was focused on understanding effects of phthalate exposure among women trying to become pregnant, findings suggest phthalates may have broader impacts on menstrual cycle function and women’s reproductive health that remain understudied.”

Comment: phthalates also affect men’s sperm motility and amounts, further adding to infertility issues. Add hyperinsulinemia due to a diet high in sugar, and you may closely account for the 15% of infertility we see in couples.