‘Safe’ Levels of Pollution May Have Long-Term Health Consequences

September 27, 2013- If your health isn’t improving despite good diet and exercise, the culprit could be something most people overlook: low levels of pollutants in food.

A new research report published in the September issue of The FASEB Journal reveals that what you eat or do may not be the problem – but that ongoing exposure to pollutants considered to be at ‘safe’ levels may contribute to the prevalence of metabolic diseases and diabetes.

"This report confirms something we've known for a long time: Pollution is bad for us," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "But, what's equally important, it shows that evaluating food contaminants and pollutants on an individual basis may be too simplistic. We can see that when ‘safe’ levels of contaminants and pollutants act together, they have significant impact on public health."

In their research, scientists used two groups of obese mice. Both were fed a high-fat, high-sucrose enriched diet, with one group receiving a cocktail of pollutants at a very low dosage -- from pre-conception to adulthood. Although researchers did not observe toxicity or excess weight gain in the group that got pollutants, they did see a deterioration of glucose tolerance in females, suggesting a defect in insulin signaling.

Study results suggest that the mixture of pollutants reduced estrogen activity in the liver through enhancing an enzyme in charge of estrogen elimination. Glucose tolerance was not impacted in males exposed to pollutants. However, males did show changes in liver related to cholesterol synthesis and transport.

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