January 20, 2013

You are here: Home / Archives for Toxins

Monsanto’s Carcinogenic Roundup Herbicide Contaminating Water Supply

December 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Anthony Gucciardi

New research has confirmed what myself and other health-conscious individuals have been saying about Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup — the carcinogenic chemical it contains known as glyphosate has been found to be contaminating the groundwater in areas where it is being applied.

What does this mean? It means that toxic glyphosate is now polluting the world’s drinking water through the widespread contamination of aquifers, wells and springs.

The explosive study that confirmed the contamination effect of Monsanto’s Roundup was published in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry last month, in which researchers discovered that 41% of the 140 groundwater samples taken from Catalonia Spain were actually above the limit of quantification.

This means that glyphosate was actually not breaking down rapidly, despite Monsanto’s claims that the chemical would do so. Without the key ability to readily break down, it is apparent that glyphosate is polluting groundwater in alarming quantities, enough to pose a significant threat to the purity of drinking water wherever it is used.

It is also important to note that due to its resistance to biodegradability, glyphosate may be lurking in nature for a very long time. But is there really cause for concern?

Glyphosate is carcinogenic, genotoxicity, neurotoxicty, hepatoxicity, and nephrotoxicity.

Glyphosate is classified by the the EPA as a Class III toxic substance, and can kill an adult in as little as 30 grams. Even more concerning is the fact that glyphosate, and Monsanto’s Roundup as a whole, have been linked to conditions such as:

  • Hormonal disorders
  • Lymphoma
  • DNA damage
  • Endocrine disease
  • Skin cancer
  • Kidney damage
  • Liver damage

It is clear that even a little glyphosate in your drinking water is dangerous, but we aren’t seeing alittle glyphosate in the groundwater samples. Instead, we are seeing the extreme contamination of otherwise pure water, all for the purpose of spraying crops that you eat with Monsanto’s carcinogenic Roundup.

It is time for Monsanto to stop threatening public health, the environment, and the future of the planet. Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide should be banned for its adverse impact on health and the environment.

Filed Under: Monsanto, Water Tagged With:

Four Ways to Naturally Purify the Air in Your Home

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Anthony Gucciardi

How toxic is your home?

While most people spend the majority of their time outdoors, indoor air quality may actually be more threatening to your health than outdoor air. Considering the fact that outdoor air is hit with factory pollution, harmful chemicals, and much more, it is truly shocking to know that indoor air quality can be up to five times worse than outdoor air.

It is important to begin purifying the air in your home, and you may be surprised to know that to beginning this process does not require an expensive air purifier.

Here are 4 ways to naturally purify your home that you can begin immediately:

1. Use the Right Kind of Paint (Low-VOC)

The type of paint that you use inside your house can affect the overall air quality of your home. Volatile organic compounds, known as VOCs, are actually released by paints for months after application. What exactly are VOCs? These highly toxic chemicals can include formaldehyde, which was recently classified as a carcinogen by the United States government. When using VOC-containing products, the compounds will slowly release into your home, threatening the health of you and your family.

It is important to note that varnishes and waxes may also contain VOCs. Use low-VOC or no-VOC products when it comes to household painting, varnishing, or waxing.

2. Avoid Synthetic Household Cleaners, Art, and Beauty Supplies

Synthetic household products may also be introducing harmful chemical into your home. The chemicals that produce fragrance react with ozone in the air to form formaldehyde and ultrafine particles that can collect in the lungs. This effect is not limited to household cleaner, however. Hair and nail products as well as art and hobby supplies can also increase the level of VOCs in your home.

Popular air freshening products have also been found to trigger allergies and asthma.

For a safer room freshener, dip cotton balls in a sweet-smelling extract like vanilla and stash them around the house.

3. Test Your Home for Radon

Radon is a deadly invisible and odorless gas, commonly found in the basements of older homes that have not been properly tested and protected against radon gas. With it being the leading cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers and the 2nd leading cause of lung cancer period, radon gas is not something you want in your home. Scientists have even estimated that radon causes thousands of deaths annually.

Testing your home for radon is easy, inexpensive, and is vital to ensuring that your home is free of toxins.

4. Ventilate

Proper ventilation of your home is key to removing unwanted toxins from inside your home. Oftentimes during the winter months it becomes a challenge to routinely open your windows and properly ventilate your home. As a result, toxins can accumulate inside without the possibility of being released. If you live in a climate that allows for proper window ventilation all year long, then you will be able to avoid the issue and keep your windows open for a few hours each day.

Even during the winter season, however, keeping your windows open for just a few minutes per day can make a difference. If possible, place a fan in one window to blow indoor air outside, and another facing inward to blow outside air in. This will allow for optimum circulation of the air, bringing in fresh new air and removing toxic air buildup.

 

Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/4-ways-to-naturally-purify-air-in-your.html

Filed Under: Health, Housing, Pollution Tagged With:

Energy Efficient Light Bulbs Are Killing Us!

December 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS5ogZxoZ2Y&sns=fb

The energy efficient light bulbs in your house are affecting you and your neighbour’s health.

Filed Under: Consumerism, Corporations, Health Tagged With: ,

Testes Hit By Herbicides

December 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
  • A pesticide is shown to cripple the male gonads of more than 100 species.
  • Certain frogs appear to suffer the most dire effects as the chemical made males turn into females.

Male African clawed frogs — beware. Studies show the pesticide atrazine turned the male frogs into females.

A review of 142 studies on the effects of the herbicide atrazine had bad news for testes.

“Essentially, atrazine chemically castrates animals. When you look at a male exposed to atrazine, the testes are missing sperm,” Tyrone Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley told Discovery News.

The effects of atrazine on male development are consistent across all examined animals, found a study published by a team of 22 researchers from more than 60 nations in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Mammals, reptiles, and fish were all affected, but amphibians caught the worst of it. In a study by Hayes, male African clawed frogs turned into females after exposure to atrazine, which kills weeds around the world in everything from corn fields to orchards.

NEWS: ADHD Linked to Pesticide Exposure

“And this is not at extremely high concentrations” said co-author of the review Val Beasley of the University of Illinois in a press release. “These are at concentrations that are found in the environment.”

Humans aren’t spared the effects of atrazine, the world’s second most common herbicide after glyphosate, Hayes said.

Hayes pointed to studies correlating atrazine exposure tolow sperm quality, birth defects, miscarriage, and breast cancer

“The hotspot is probably the US, because we use so much” Hayes said. “The biggest hotspot in the US is the Midwest, the cornbelt, another is Florida where it is used on sugar cane.”

But, he added, “We’re all exposed to it. Surface water, rainwater you name it atrazine is in it.”

The European Union has already banned the use of atrazine

“I think a global ban is certainly in order” Hayes said.

The maker of atrazine, Switzerland-based Syngenta, disagrees

“The science is clear. Atrazine cannot, does not, and will not cause adverse effects at levels to which people would ever be exposed in the real world” Ann Bryan, Syngenta’s senior manager of external communications told Discovery News.

NEWS: Pesticide Concerns May Actually Harm Us

“Independent organizations such as the EPA, World Health Organization , Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority , and others have conducted or reviewed studies that consistently support the safety of atrazine” Bryan said.

Syngenta and Hayes haven’t always been at odds.

Hayes was introduced to atrazine when he worked on the chemical for Syngenta, he said. Now, though, Hayes says his public talks have been disrupted by Syngenta, and he’s received vulgar and threatening comments from them.

BLOG: Dirty Dozen Pollutants Ride Again

“There is no truth to these claims” said Syngenta’s Bryan.

No matter what side of the atrazine debate wins, there will be economic consequences.

In the face of a global atrazine ban… “We [Syngenta] would be concerned for the millions of farmers and the US consumers who benefit from atrazine. US consumers benefit by $3.6 to $4.4 billion annually due to decreased producer costs” Bryan said.

Banning the chemical in just some areas might not be a good idea

“There needs to be a system of global [agricultural chemical] regulation” review co-author Val Beasley told Discovery News.

“What we don’t want to see is a situation like DDT” said Beasley.

After being banned in the US, DDT continued to be used in the developing world to eliminate insects.

 

Source: http://news.discovery.com/earth/pesticides-testes-males-111202.html

Filed Under: Corporations, Corruption, Health Tagged With: , , ,

Defense and Aerospace Industry Pollutant Now Found in Virtually All Humans Tested

December 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Perchlorate is an environmental pollutant primarily associated with releases by defense contractors, military operations and aerospace programs, as it is a key ingredient in rocket fuel.

It is now found in virtually all humans tested, and it is continually making its way up the food chain through ground and drinking water, into feed and edible plants, animals products, milk and breast milk — contaminating conventional and organically grown food, alike.

It is now distributed widely throughout North America, as depicted by the image below:
The Colorado River is so thoroughly contaminated with perchlorate (1.5-8 micrograms per Liter) that 90% of the lettuce consumed during the winter months in the United States produced in the Lower Colorado River region contains this powerful endocrine disruptor.

What does it do?

Perchlorate has been used as a “medicine” in this country to “treat” hyperthyroidism since the 1950s despite the fact some patients may develop aplastic anemia (bone marrow destruction) as a result.

Perchlorate interferes with iodide uptake at the sodium-iodide symporter in the thyroid gland which unfortunately has a 30-fold higher affinity for perchlorate than iodide. Without adequate iodide hypothyroidism ensues. Could this pollutant have anything to do with the geometric expansion of hypothyroidism diagnoses in this country?

5 studies on perchlorate/hypothyroidism link

If it were not for the perfect fit between pharmaceutical medicine, e.g. Synthroid (levothyroxine) and pollution-caused hypothyroidism, this question might get some traction in the medical community and we could start solving the underlying problem: a military-industrial establishment that thrives on death and disease.

HAS PERCHLORATE DESTROYED THE MEANING OF ORGANIC?

In 2005 the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology published a study on perchlorate levels in North America. They found:

Conventionally and organically produced lettuce and other leafy vegetable samples were collected from production fields and farmers’ markets in the central and coastal valleys of California, New Mexico, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Quebec, and New Jersey.

Results show that 16% of the conventionally produced samples and 32% of the organically produced samples had quantifiable levels of perchlorate using ion chromatography. Estimated perchlorate exposure from organically produced leafy vegetables was approximately 2 times that of conventional produce…

The time has come for those of us who buy organic food to transcend the inherently self-centered and anthropocentric limitations associated with these food quality concerns. We can no longer fool ourselves into thinking that we can save ourselves by eating organically without doing something about the planet dying under the weight of the conventional and dominant food production and distribution system. When we pollute the environment we pollute ourselves. The very flesh of the Earth (our mother) and our flesh are woven from the same fabric.

 

The exact same problem with thinking that consuming organic protects you from planetary destruction has emerged with the inreasingly destabilized/destabilizing nuclear energy paradigm. Radioisotope contamination of the environment is now a global problem, and low-energy internalized radiation is several orders of magnitude more harmful to our health than previously assumed. (Read our expose on this topic here). The global distribution of uranium-238 through hydrological and meteorological cycles, for instance, does not descriminate between “organic” and “conventional” food — it bioaccumulates equally.

We are not saying that organic isn’t important, as we have no other way to protect ourselves from what is increasingly becoming a nutricidal food production system. However, in order to stay grounded in reality, we must realize its limitations and work on changing the underlying dysfunctional planet-harming systems that are cutting across the “organic” and “conventional” lines with equally destructive force.

 

Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/defense-and-aerospace-industry.html

Filed Under: Environment, Health, Military, Pollution, USA Tagged With:

Widely Used Weed-Killer Causes Reproductive Harm to Animals and People

December 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A recent scientific review and new study add to the mounting evidence that the chemical atrazine is harming animals and people far from the farms where the herbicide is used.

  • A review in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology describes a litany reproductive damages to amphibians, fish, reptiles and mammals caused by the chemical herbicide atrazine.
  • A new study published in Environmental Research links atrazine to menstrual cycle disruptions in people in Illinois and Vermont, where drinking water is contaminated at levels previously considered safe.

Atrazine Contaminates Water Supplies in Farm Communities
Atrazine is the second-most widely used herbicide in the United States, at 75 million pounds of it applied annually to fields of corn and other crops, and is used in 60 other countries around the world. The chemical, long suspected in the decline of frog populations, is routinely found in groundwater and surface water – rivers lakes and streams – as well as rain.

A 2010 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council found atrazine in 80 percent of public water systems of the 153 sampled in the Midwest and Gulf States, where the Mississippi River carries agriculture pollution from the plains. The U.S. Geological Survey found atrazine in 75 percent of the stream water and 40 percent of the groundwater sampled in the same regions.

EPA Waiting for “Smoking Gun” Before Considering Ban?
Among the reproductive problems described in the new review in Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology are the following:

  • changes to the expression of genes involved in hormone signaling;
  • interference with metamorphosis;
  • inhibition of key enzymes that control estrogen and androgen production;
  • and skewing of the sex ratio of wild and laboratory animals (toward female).

And just recently, a study in Envionmental Research linked drinking atrazine-contaminated tap water to menstrual disorders in women in Illinois and Vermont, even when the tap water in question had far less than the Environmental Protection Agency allowable level of 3 parts per billion. The manufacturer of the weed-killer argues that perhaps these women were just under stress, but this study is not the first to tie atrazine in drinking water to health issues in people. In 2009 a different study tied atrazine in drinking water to low birth weight in Indiana newborns.

Several years ago, NRDC and others began calling for a complete phase-out of atrazine use and at least one of the scientists involved in the study echoes the call for a ban:

“I hope this will stimulate policymakers to look at the totality of the data and ask very broad questions,” Tyrone Hayes, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley and lead author of the review, told Science Daily. “Do we want this stuff in our environment? Do we want — knowing what we know — our children to drink this stuff? I would think the answer would be no.”

Unfortunately, Tom Philipott of Mother Jones reports that EPA will “not even consider” a ban before 2013, which doesn’t mean they will ban it in 2013, but that they will think about it then.

What Can You Do to Protect Yourself from Atrazine?
If you live in a farming region, you can get involved in local and state efforts to reduce or eliminate atrazine without waiting for new federal regulations or a ban. You can request the water quality report from your local utility and urge your utility to step up monitoring of for atrazine to document the problem and then alert the public to the dangers. And, especially farming communities where atrazine has been found, you should to install and use home water filtration systems.

Source: http://www.care2.com/causes/widely-used-weed-killer-causes-reproductive-disorders-in-animals-and-people.html

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: ,

Toxic Levels of Arsenic Found in Popular Juice Brands

December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Arsenic has long been recognized as a poison and a contaminant in drinking water, but now concerns are growing about arsenic in foods, especially in fruit juices that are a mainstay for children.

Controversy over arsenic in apple juice made headlines as the school year began when Mehmet Oz, M.D., host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” told viewers that tests he’d commissioned found 10 of three dozen apple-juice samples with total arsenic levels exceeding 10 parts per billion (ppb). There’s no federal arsenic threshold for juice or most foods, though the limit for bottled and public water is 10 ppb. The Food and Drug Administration, trying to reassure consumers about the safety of apple juice, claimed that most arsenic in juices and other foods is of the organic type that is “essentially harmless.”

But an investigation by Consumer Reports shows otherwise. Our study, including tests of apple and grape juice, a scientific analysis of federal health data, a consumer poll, and interviews with doctors and other experts, finds the following:

  • Roughly 10 percent of our juice samples, from five brands, had total arsenic levels that exceeded federal drinking-water standards. Most of that arsenic was inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen.
  • One in four samples had lead levels higher than the FDA’s bottled-water limit of 5 ppb. As with arsenic, no federal limit exists for lead in juice.
  • Apple and grape juice constitute a significant source of dietary exposure to arsenic, according to our analysis of federal health data from 2003 through 2008.
  • Children drink a lot of juice. Thirty-five percent of children 5 and younger drink juice in quantities exceeding pediatricians’ recommendations, our poll of parents shows.
  • Mounting scientific evidence suggests that chronic exposure to arsenic and lead even at levels below water standards can result in serious health problems.
  • Inorganic arsenic has been detected at disturbing levels in other foods, too, which suggests that more must be done to reduce overall dietary exposure.

Tainted brands include Minute Maid, Mott’s, Gerber, Welch’s, and Great Value (Walmart) among others. See results from tests on other apple and grape juice brands.

Our findings have prompted Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, to urge the FDA to set arsenic and lead standards for apple and grape juice. Our scientists believe that juice should at least meet the 5 ppb lead limit for bottled water. They recommend an even lower arsenic limit for juice: 3 ppb.

“People sometimes say, ‘If arsenic exposure is so bad, why don’t you see more people sick or dying from it?’ But the many diseases likely to be increased by exposure even at relatively low levels are so common already that its effects are overlooked simply because no one has looked carefully for the connection,” says Joshua Hamilton, Ph.D., a toxicologist specializing in arsenic research and the chief academic and scientific officer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

As our investigation found, when scientists and doctors do look, the connections they’ve found underscore the need to protect public health by reducing Americans’ exposure to this potent toxin.

Source: http://health.yahoo.net/articles/nutrition/arsenic-in-juice

Filed Under: Health, Science, USA Tagged With: , ,

Who Will Be Heard In New York’s Hydrofracking Hearings?

November 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If public consultation is to be meaningful, we need expert views, not lobbyists’ millions, to rule New York’s decision on fracking

In New York state, where I live, emotions are running hot. We are holding public comment hearings to find out whether the regulations proposed to oversee the relatively new and extreme form of fossil fuel extraction called hydrofracking would meet the expectations of our citizens. The hearings are meant to give the people whose lives will be affected by this type of extraction a place to voice their concerns and fears. This all seems sensible. Actually, it is quite democratic in concept, unless, of course, emotions and not facts rule the day.

Today, we stand in the warm glow of watching people waking up to the understanding that very few of the safeguards, regulatory agencies, politicians and democratic processes that have been put into place to protect us are actually still doing that. I say “warm glow” because there are actual signs that 99% of the people who have been let down by these safeguards are coming back to life and their hearts are beginning to beat again with the promise of something new.

In New York state, we have seen record numbers of people commenting on whether we should begin to drill for natural gas in our state. We have people engaging and even willing to use their bodies to stop this from moving forward. We have the dismal example of Pennsylvania and its thousands of well contaminations and regulatory infractions to let us into a glimpse of what is in store for New York state. There are homes exploding from methane gas migration; there are animals mysteriously dying; people becoming mysteriously ill; and whole rivers and streams with every form of life in them dead.

Entire neighborhoods are engaged in class action lawsuits against drilling companies. One beloved river is now bubbling methane from a gas well that runs directly under it.

The gas industry responds with widespread denial every time a person’s health, water or quality of life is disrupted from this mass industrialisation. It would be one thing if every time there was a problem, these “good neighbors” would actually do the right thing, accept responsibility for their transgressions and right them. But that has, sadly, not been the case.

One of their favorite mottos goes: “Hey, if you want energy, there are going to be problems, but the benefits outweigh the costs” – unless, of course, it is your well that is fouled, or your animals that die, or your children that become sick, or your property value that plummets, or your ability to get a mortgage on your home that is denied. Then the costs far outweigh the benefits.

If you own a lot of property and stand to make a good deal of money leasing it, or are someone who works for the gas industry and doesn’t live near the drilling (most workers are brought in from out of state), you are for drilling. Everyone else seems to be pretty much against it. Unless, that is, you are a politician who has a lot of lobbyists come and visit your office.

As of the beginning of this year, the gas industry has dumped $3.2m on our state capital (Albany). That is a $3.15m jump from the level of lobbying spend before we thought of drilling in this state; $150,000 of that went directly into our governor’s campaign chest.

What does that kind of money buy? There is a lot of talk from our state leaders to let the science and facts rule the day, rather than emotion and fear. Yet, there are two things missing from our proposed regulations and the “blue ribbon panel” our governor has put together to help guide us in all things drilling: scientists and health professionals are the missing ingredient.

There has been no long-term environmental impact study done on horizontal hydrofracking and no long-term health impact study done. Most of the comments that our state will be hearing in the next few days will be based only on science – and a demand for these two strands of advice to be included in all decision-making for regulations.

Will they listen? That would depend on whether or not the emotion of selfishness, or love of money, gets in the way. We will see.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/30/new-york-hydrofracking-hearings-mark-ruffalo

Filed Under: Environment, Fracking, Health, Pollution, USA Tagged With:

Global Health Organization To Purchase Millions Of Toxic HPV Vaccines To Administer To Women And Girls In Third-World Countries

November 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

At its recent board meeting in Bangladesh, the GAVI Alliance, formerly known as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, announced plans to bring the deadly human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines Gardasil (Merck & Co.) and Cervarix (GlaxoSmithKline) into the third world. A pro-vaccination group backed by the World Bank, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the vaccine industry, GAVI’s stated goal is to vaccinate 240 million children by 2015.

As many as two million women and girls in nine unidentified developing countries could soon receive one of the two HPV vaccines, even though HPV is potentially linked to only one percent, of all cervical cancers, according to some reports (http://washingtonexaminer.com/node/…). The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, has stated that “HPV is not associated with cervical cancer” at all (http://www.naturalnews.com/022404.html).

And yet the vaccine industry through its various “nonprofit” and government partnership continues to push the deadly vaccine on young girls, women, and now even young boys around the world, despite the fact that it does not work and can cause horrific side effects. According to the latest figures released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Gardasil alone has caused more than 20,000 adverse events and 71 known deaths since it was first unveiled (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/va…).

These figures are actually higher when taking into account the 26 additional deaths concealed in US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) documents that were recently exposed by Judicial Watch, a public watchdog group. SaneVax, a vaccine group that tracks HPV vaccine cases, says there have actually been more than 23,300 adverse events and 103 deaths caused by HPV vaccines, to date (http://sanevax.org/).

With all this in mind, it is concerning, to say the least, that GAVI is advocating that the poorest women and children in the world be subjected to this chemical poison. Nevertheless, the group is reportedly working on a deal with both Merck and GSK to get the vaccines at a reduced rate, and the UN World Bank will be issuing bonds to countries in order to fund the whole HPV vaccine campaign.

A GAVI press release also states that the group will push rubella vaccines along with the HPV vaccines. The goal is to vaccinate 588 million children against rubella by 2015.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/034269_global_health_HPV_vaccines.html#ixzz1fBix0mv1

Filed Under: Big Pharma, Corporations, Drugs, Health, Propaganda, Rights, Safety, USA, Vaccines and Medicine, Women Tagged With: ,

Five Surprising Culprits Behind Obesity and Weight Gain

November 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

There is no doubt that the Western diet holds most of the weight regarding the escalating obesity epidemic we are facing today.

Ingesting overly large portions of foods containing fat-promoting ingredients coupled with an inactive lifestyle is the perfect recipe for a gigantic disaster.

While these obesity contributors are widely known, there are actually some other very surprising factors to consider when analyzing the reason for the nation’s continued growth.

Antibiotics Could be to Blame for Excess Weight

As surprising as it may seem, antibiotics have actually be pinpointed as being a promoter for obesity as well as diabetes and metabolic syndrome. While antibiotics succeed in destroying bad bacteria, which is their intended use, they also destroy good bacteria in the gut known as friendly flora.

This lack of bacterial discrimination leads to a shortage in friendly gut bacteria which are responsible for regulating overall health, including weight management.

Pollution has been Connected with Weight Gain

Not many people would point their finger at pollution when searching for a cause for obesity. And while poor air quality certainly isn’t a primary reason for extra weight, it does indeed have a link to extra weight. Research has shown that ingesting toxic chemicals found in both food and the air leads to increased fat storage in babies. A defense mechanism is triggered in unborn babies when mother’s take in these toxic chemicals which is supposed to protect the baby. It just so happens that this defense mechanism is the formation of fat.

Shampoo, Plastic, and Pesticides

There is growing concern regarding various chemicals used in products today and their impact on our health. Chemicals like bisphenol-A, phthalates, PCB’s, POP’s, and pesticides, which are all endocrine disruptors, have been tied to many health ailments such as infertility, asthma, diabetes, and obesity. Paula Baillie-Hamilton, an expert on metabolism and environmental toxins at Stirling University in Scotland, was one of the first to point out the connection between environmental toxins and obesity. She noted that:

Overlooked in the obesity debate is that the earth’s environment has changed significantly during the last few decades because of the exponential production and usage of synthetic organic and inorganic chemicals

Environmental toxins are lesser known evils when it comes to health complications, but it may be time people started seriously considering these toxins when evaluating their health.

Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/5-surprising-culprits-behind-obesity.html

Filed Under: Corporations, Environment, Food, Health, Pollution Tagged With: ,
« Older Posts