Ancestry, Breast Cancer and plastics chemicals: Is there a link?
Published: 3 November 2006
Category: Bisphenol A (BPA), Cancer link & plastic packaging, Phthalates
Recently, the focus of food manufacturers and cosumers has moved to the impact that packaging materials may have on human biological and genetic processes. Suspected disruptive chemcials have allegedly been found in plastics packaging materials, and could leach into the organic foods and beverages we eat, altering the chemical composition of these seemingly “organic” foods.
According to this article, scientists may have found a link between breast cancer and hormone-like chemicals in the body that stem from not “anything a woman has done, but what her mother – and possibly her grandmother – did before her.” This new information allegedly provides a link between several environmental chemicals, called endocrine disrupters, and breast cancer, which work by influencing genes and telling them to “flip on or off.” Three chemicals that are allegedly suspects are dioxins, phthalates and bisphenol A, all of which are found in some plastics materials.