All over your home…
In every store you visit…
In every nook and cranny of the rainforest, the sea, and even deep in the Earth…
Is a man-made invention that is wreaking havoc on the world and our health.
Plastic.
While plastic is seen as one of the most useful inventions ever created (and it is), it’s also one of the most problematic.
It doesn’t degrade quickly, it is choking mother nature… and we are only now discovering it could produce catastrophic results in human bodies.
A recent study conducted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shows in great detail the danger of modern-day plastics.
The researchers wanted to test just how dangerous plastics were, so they decided to test how one of the most common chemicals used in plastics affect our health.
Chemicals known as phthalates have long been suspected to negatively modulate human health as they are believed to have a negative effect on hormone function.
Referred to as “endocrine disruptors,” phthalates may produce unwanted changes in human function. In 2006, NTP found that DEHP may pose a risk to human development, especially critically ill male infants.
The problem with phthalates is they’re usually found in products made for children, which is especially troubling as a child’s physical development is easily influenced by even the tiniest disturbances.
To see if phthalates could damage a person the researchers conducted studies on rats.
As Tim Newman writes:
They fed rates a cookie laced with phthalates at quantities that mimicked those found in humans, based on data from pregnant women.
The animals were divided into three experimental groups: a control group that received no phthalates, a low-dose group, and a high-dose group.
The rats received a cookie daily during pregnancy and for 10 days while lactating.
When the offspring of the phthalate-fed rats were born, their brains were investigated. The team, led by Prof. Janice Juraska, found a significant lack of both neurons and synapses in the rats’ medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). This was the case for both of the phthalate groups when compared with the control rats.
The mPFC is involved in many high-level cognitive functions, including memory, decision-making, error detection, conflict monitoring, and cognitive flexibility.
It has also been implicated in conditions including autism, depression, and schizophrenia. The authors write:
Once the rats had reached adulthood, their cognitivehttp://freedomhealthnews.com/wp-admin/post-new.php flexibility was tested using an attentional set-shifting task. As expected, the scientists found measurable deficits.
The debate over phthalates and their impact on the human population will, no doubt, continue on. Because these chemicals are so incredibly prevalent in our environment, it is essential that we understand exactly what influence they have on our bodies.
The scientists looked at that data and concluded that if what was happening to the rats also took place in human brain tissue it would be of great concern.
In the past few decades, it’s become quite obvious something is going on with our health.
Incidences of autism are on the rise.
Behavioral disorders continue to increase.
The frequency of mental health disorders is spiking.
Could it be because of all the plastic?
Studies like this certainly lend credence to the claim that plastics might be ba
