Plastics touching our food may be making us gain weight
When it comes to keeping off extra pounds, watching what we eat may not be enough – we have to keep an eye on our food’s packaging, too.
Rates of obesity among US adults have increased from 14% in 1980 to 42% today, and half the world is expected to be overweight or obese by 2035, with children and teens facing the sharpest increase in obesity and its consequences. Because data doesn’t support the idea that overeating and lack of exercise are squarely to blame, the scientific community is exploring other factors that may contribute – including metabolic disruption caused by eating products packaged in plastic.
For a study published last year, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology set out to determine what chemical compounds exist in 34 common plastic items that touch things we eat, such as yogurt cups, juice bottles, styrofoam meat trays, gummy-candy packages, and plastic wrap used for produce and cheese, as well as items often found in kitchens, like polyurethane placemats and sponges.
Of the 55,000 chemicals the researchers found in these items, only 629 were identifiable, with 11 being known metabolic disruptors such as phthalates and bisphenols, which interfere with our bodies’ ability to regulate weight, among other troubling health effects. However, when exposed to in vitro human cell cultures (studies have not used human or animal test subjects), far more chemicals than the identified 11 metabolic disruptors triggered adipogenesis – the process underlying obesity, in which cells proliferate and accumulate an excess of fat.
“[W]e’re quite certain [that] there are many chemicals in plastic products that disrupt metabolism, but we just couldn’t identify all of them,” Martin Wagner, a study
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