More than 3,600 chemicals used in food packaging or preparation have been found in the human body, some of which are hazardous to health, while others are little known, says a study published on Tuesday, September 17, 2024.

About 100 of these chemicals are considered harmful. “High anxiety” This has negative implications for human health, said lead study author Birgit Geucke of the Food Packaging Forum Foundation, a Zurich-based non-governmental organization.

Some of these chemicals have been relatively well studied and have already been found in the human body, such as PFAS and bisphenol A – both of which are targets for bans.

But little is known about the effects on others’ health, Geuke told AFP, calling for more research into how chemicals used in packaging are ingested with food.

The researchers had previously listed nearly 14,000 food contact chemicals (FCCs), which “Escape” Entry into food from packaging made of plastic, paper, glass, metal or other materials.

They can also come from other parts of the food-manufacturing process, such as conveyor belts or kitchen utensils.

The researchers then searched for these chemicals in existing biomonitoring databases, which track chemicals in human samples.

Geuke said the team expected to find a few hundred FCCs. But they were surprised to find 3,601 FCCs – a quarter of all known FCCs.

Geuke stressed that this study could not show that all of these chemicals necessarily passed into the body from food packaging, because “Other risk sources are possible”,

in the middle “High anxiety” In recent years, a number of PFAS chemicals, also known as persistent chemicals, have been found in many parts of the human body and have been linked to a number of health problems.

Also found was bisphenol A, a hormone-disrupting chemical used to make plastics that has already been banned from use in baby bottles in several countries. Another hormone-disrupting chemical was phthalates, which have been linked to infertility.

Less is known about oligomers, which are byproducts of plastic production. “There is almost no evidence about the health effects of these chemicals.” Guecke said.

Minimize contact with packaging

When it comes to toxicology, there’s an old saying that “the dose makes the poison”,

Geuke acknowledged that one limitation of the study was that it could not tell whether the concentrations of any chemicals were particularly high.

But he warned that these chemicals can interact with one another, pointing to one sample that contained up to 30 different PFAS.

Geuke recommended that people minimize their contact time with packaging — and avoid heating food in packaging.

Duane Mellor, an expert in evidence-based medicine at Britain’s Aston University who was not involved in the study, praised the research. “very intense work”,

“However, it does not say how much we are exposed to these chemicals, and it also points to other sources of these chemicals in our environment.” he told AFP.

instead of being “unnecessarily worried”Mailer suggested that people “Demand better data and reduce unnecessary exposure to chemicals that can ultimately affect our health”,

Some chemicals are already banned.

The European Union is in the final stages of banning the use of PFAS in food packaging. The EU has also proposed a similar ban on bisphenol A from the end of this year.

The study was published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.