United States: Many types of food – notably those that are individually packaged in foil, on cardboard trays, or in paper packing could contain any of nearly two hundred chemicals that have been associated with breast cancer, found a new study.
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These foods’ wrappings contain 189 substances that could lead to breast cancer, researchers announced on September 24 in the Frontiers in Toxicology.
Furthermore, these “forever chemicals” – such as PFAS, bisphenols, and phthalates – can leach into food from packaging and be consumed by people, according to the studies.
According to Jane Muncke, the researcher and managing director of the non-profit Food Packaging Forum, “This study is important because it shows that there is a huge opportunity for prevention of human exposure to breast cancer-causing chemicals,” healthday.com reported.
“The potential for cancer prevention by reducing hazardous chemicals in your daily life is under-explored and deserves much more attention,” Muncke added.
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Chemicals in Food Packaging has been put together from thousands of scientific reports by the Food Packaging Forum and put forward shocking results.
From the above database, the researchers established that 143 chemicals that cause breast cancer were used in plastic packaging materials, while 89 were used in paper or cardboard.
Scientists said that it was clear that humans are exposed to at least seventy-six of those cancer-causing chemicals through diet, healthday.com reported.
Researchers have said that these chemicals are ending up in food packaging despite rules in the United States, the European Union, China, South America, and other places to reduce the use of the substances.
Moreover, the researchers also pointed out that roughly 40 of 76 top cancer-causing chemicals are already recognized in some way as hazardous to human health by at least one global regulatory agency but are still detected in the packaging materials for our food.
Therefore, it is shown that the current rules are not enough to provide protection against human health, as researchers stated.