Bottled water found to contain over 24,000 chemicals, including endocrine disruptors
Thursday, September 19, 2013 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
(NaturalNews)
Widespread consumer demand for plastic products that are free of the
hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) has led to some
significant positive changes in the way that food, beverage and water
containers are manufactured. But a new study out of Germany has found
that thousands of other potentially harmful chemicals are still leeching
from plastic products into food and beverages, including an
endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDC) known as di(2-ethylhexyl) fumarate,
or DEHF, that is completely unregulated.
Martin Wagner and his
colleague, Jorg Oehlmann, from the Goethe University Frankfurt, in
conjunction with a team of researchers from the German Federal Institute
of Hydrology, learned this after conducting tests on 18 different
bottled water products to look for the presence of EDCs. Using an
advanced combination of bioassay work and high-resolution mass
spectrometry, the team identified some 24,520 different chemicals
present in the tested water.
But of major concern, and the
apparent underpinning of the study's findings, was DEHF, a plasticizer
chemical that is used to make plastic bottles more flexible. According
to reports, DEHF was clearly identified in the tested water as the most
consistent and obvious culprit causing anti-estrogenic activity. Despite
trace amounts of more than 24,000 other potentially damaging chemicals,
DEHF stood out as the only possible EDC capable of inducing this
particular observed activity, a highly concerning observation.
The study's published abstract explains that 13 of the 18
bottled water
products tested exhibited "significant" anti-estrogenic activity, while
16 of the 18 samples were found to inhibit the body's androgen
receptors by an astounding 90 percent. Additionally, the other 24,520
chemical
traces besides DEHF were also identified as exhibiting antagonistic
activity, which means that they, too, are detrimental to the body's
hormonal system.
Many thousands of endocrine-disrupting chemicals used in plastic production prove material unsafe
But
DEHF is apparently not alone in causing significant damage to the
endocrine system, as the team was unable to identify this chemical as
being specifically anti-androgenic. What this suggests is that there is
some other chemical, or chemical combination, being leeched into bottled
water
that is interfering with the body's chemical signaling system, which
is, of course, responsible for hormone production and use within the
body.
"We confirmed the identity and biological activity of DEHF
and additional isomers of dioctyl fumarate and maleate using authentic
standards," report the researchers. "Since DEHF is anti-estrogenic but
not anti-androgenic we conclude that additional, yet unidentified EDCs
must contribute to the antagonistic effect of bottled water."
So
while these specific findings concerning DEHF are groundbreaking, the
overall conclusion to be drawn from this research is that far more study
is needed to determine the types of
chemicals
that are being leeched from plastic into our food and water, not to
mention the extent of this leeching. And since the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and
the rest of the three-letter government agencies will surely never get
around to conducting this important research, independent science will
simply have to take up the charge.
"This work is a 'tour de force' in identification of
endocrine disruptors in packaged materials," says Bruce Blumberg from the University of California, Irvine, as quoted by
Chemistry World.
This type of analysis, he adds, "will be very important for our future
understanding of what chemicals we are routinely exposed to and which of
these pose hazards of being endocrine disruptors."
You can read the full study abstract here:
http://www.plosone.org
In
the meantime, conscious consumers can avoid plastic containers whenever
possible and simply use glass or steel containers instead to avoid
these unknown risks.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.plosone.org
http://www.rsc.org
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com
