Each day we encounter well over 500 chemicals that our bodies are tasked with detoxifying. Some of the worst and most pervasive are Phthalates that not only are instrumental in causing allergies but have been linked to prostatic hypertrophy, endometriosis, breast cancer, hypo-testosteronism, hypothyroidism, infertility, animals mating with the same sex, inability to lose weight, asthma, birth defects, cancers, diabetes, and infinitely more. Phthalate levels in the human body are over 10,000 times higher than most other pollutants. No other pollutant even comes close!
Let's take a look at just one toxic environmental chemical family that is in all of us. We literally cannot avoid it if we live on this planet. U.S. Government researchers have found them in all humans. Even when researchers drop helicopters into pristine road-less areas, far from industry, they find this pollutant in all species of life they examine, from fish and salamanders to the largest mammals. They are actually a family of man-made chemicals which define modern life as we know it, the phthalates, better recognized by you as plastics and plasticizers. But they go far beyond our concept of a plastic, because they add flexibility, durability, slow-release, cost-effectiveness, scent, light and heat protection, and many other properties to things we do not consider as plastics.
Phthalates (plastic-derived carcinogenic chemicals made from petroleum) are in your plastic water bottle and other food containers (linings of cans, juice boxes, plastic wrap and Styrofoam trays), not to mention infant formula bottles. In fact baby bottles have some of the highest levels of phthalates, and this is made even worse by microwaving a baby's bottle. Plus when the mother drinks out of plastic water bottles, the plastics cross the placenta and head for the fetus's brain and glands that produce hormones. And unfortunately low doses have been shown to be more toxic than higher ones. Phthalates are in food containers of nearly every type from soup to cereals, hidden in boxes, bags and beer, food and soda cans, or blatantly in Styrofoam trays and cups and plastic wrap, and plastic bottles and jugs. Phthalates are in dental fillings (composites), even the glues for dental crowns, the bags that hold "safe" saline breast implants, and are a large part of dental implants and joint replacement adhesives or glues and elute from coronary artery stents (methylacrylates).
Phthalates or plasticizers outgas from IVs, dental materials, vinyl floors, carpeting, mattresses, most furnishings (couches, chairs, mattresses, desk and tables), appliances, computers, home and office and construction materials, automobiles, the coatings of electric wires (nestled in the walls of every building outgas as they heat), PVC plumbing, etc. The list is endless. Clearly phthalates are the most ubiquitously unavoidable pollutant in the human body. The evidence is overwhelming. The phthalates (plastics) permeate every aspect of our life, since they are ingredients in even cosmetics and toiletries, nail polishes, perfumes, deodorants, hair conditioners, lotions and other personal care products as well as medications, especially those that are called "extended release" or "24 hour" or "time release" or "slow release". For it is the plastic coating that creates this property.
And if these were not dangerous enough by themselves, they are never alone. They are usually combined in products with equally or even more dangerous environmental pollutants like the phthalate cousin BPA (bisphenol A, often accompanies phthalates), PBDE (flame retardants), PFOA (stain resistant, water resistant, Teflon type chemicals), VOHs (volatile organic hydrocarbons which include xylene, toluene, benzene, and hundreds more), pesticides, etc. All these are often called POPs, or persistent environmental pollutants, because most of them take decades to break down.
And now even animals in the wild have measurable levels in their systems. Yet they don't use Styrofoam cups, plastic water and infant bottles, nor shrink-wrap their foods in plastic. Nor do they live in enclosed homes and offices with huge amounts of furnishings as well as appliances that outgas phthalates. Nor do they ride in toxic car/planes, in heavy exhaust, or work in polluted factories and offices made from an abundance of construction materials making them literal phthalate cocoons. We have truly changed the air on the planet Earth in this century. And worse, we have changed the chemistry of the human body more than at any other time.
The evidence now for phthalates being able to contribute to or directly causing every malady known is overwhelming. Babies are born with measurable levels, and if they have to spend time in the hospital to be on IVs, or have catheters or gastric tubes, this raises their levels even further. Birth defects and lowered IQ, hypothyroidism, neurologic and especially brain dysfunctions are among the many spin-off diseases from the privilege of living in this world of convenient plastics. Cancers, from prostate, testicular and breast to brain and pancreatic, can be programmed in the genetic of babies while they are still in the womb, only to have their emergence suppressed until adulthood.
In many of the reports you will encounter the term bisphenol A or BPA. As a broadly used industrial chemical and polycarbonate and epoxy resin that also lines food cans, BPA migrates directly form those containers into the foods, just as phthalates do. Although BPA is not technically a phthalate, it is most of the time found combined with phthalates (from carbonless copy paper to cabinets) and his its own toxic properties in addition to those of the phthalates that it's connected with. Therefor since these two toxins are usually present as a combination, it is quite meaningless to separate their toxicities since they usually occur in combination. As well, they share several mechanisms of toxicity in the body. So don't be hoodwinked by proclamations that a products is "BPA free". The manufacturers assume you are ignorant of the hidden phthalates.
Meanwhile, remember phthalates and BPA are only two thousands of chemicals that we are exposed to and minimally hundreds each day that our bodies are asked to detoxify. Even chemicals in cellophane and plastic windows of cookie boxes are proven to migrate into the foods that they do not even contact. We cannot escape them, nor can we detoxify or metabolize all that we are exposed to in a day.
Excerpt from "How to Cure Diabetes!" by Sherry Rogers