Phthalates, Plastic Bottles & My Belly?

I am overweight. I admit it and anyone who sees me would agree. However, there may be a mitigating factor as to why I can't seem to shed the excess fat around my midsection. Other than the fact that I am middle-aged, I have tried exercise and diet and though my weight changes, the belly remains!

Now comes news that the plastic that packages everything from water to frozen food might have a role in my midsection. Phthalates, the chemical compounds that are found in just about everything today have been linked to lower fertility rates, and now, abdominal fat and resistance to insulin. This is a double whammy for a diabetic, which I am not thankfully.

I do have to wonder if the obesity epidemic that our country is having may be as much caused by packaging as by the junk food the plastics hold. A study by the University of Rochester Medical Center published back in 2007 makes some of these connections, yet strangely the media didn't give it much play. I suspect that is because it's a difficult word to spell, "phthalates".

I have a history of being suspicious of plastics. My father was a researcher in hematology and bacteriology. While working at his hospital he found that blood packaged in the then new, plastic blood packets became difficult to correctly type. Without the proper Rh Typing patients can get the wrong kind of blood and that is trouble.

What he found was that the plastic bags leached their plasticizers into the blood product and changed it's Rh Type, furthermore serum stored in plastic bottles also changed it's characteristics over time. Disturbed at this he began doing a very simple study.

He acquired a quantity of plastic containers used for packaging blood and blood products and exposed them to various serums. The results showed a problem was occurring in many of the types of plastics. Additionally, he took diluted quantities of the sterile water that had been exposed to the plastics and injected it into fertile eggs. The results were a very high number of birth defects in the chicks hatched from the eggs.

When this material was presented to the NIH for further study, they politely told him they didn't want to go into it at this time. That was in 1967! Makes you go, "hummmm".