Look around you, at your laptop, your phone, your cup. See anything in common with these objects? They all contain plastic. There is no doubt that we reside in a world dependent on plastic. The cars we drive and the containers we eat out of are all made out of plastic. Plastic is found in everything, but does that mean that it should be?
DEHP, a plasticizer widely used for manufacturing plastic products, has been found to cause adverse health effects. The compound, which is found in products ranging from wire insulators to medical equipment, has been linked to allergy, chronic inflammation, and immunodeficiency.
Over the years, there have been attempts to regulate DEHP. Prop 65 in California added it to the list of hazardous chemicals, and the European Union (EU) has classified the compound as a reproductive toxicant. DEHP is believed to impair the reproductive capabilities of both men and women and may even potentially harm future offspring. However, DEHP has not gotten as bad of a rap as other materials found in plastic—say, BPA–but it should.
Image source: Pedro Armestre
Recent research done by Dr. Vassilios Papadopoulos and Dr. Daniel Benjamin Martinez-Arguelles at McGill University in Montreal have found that exposure to DEHP during fetal development can cause changes in gene expression, or epigenetic changes, in fetuses. While DEHP exposure does not change DNA sequences, it is able to alter phenotypes by DNA methylation—a process in which a chemical group, called a methyl group, attaches to cytosine (C) or adenine (A) nucleotides and blocks gene expression.
In Papadopoulos and Martinez’s study, a group of pregnant rats were exposed to DEHP throughout their gestation period, while a control group had no exposure to the compound. Researchers then performed reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS), a technique used to analyze genome-wide methylation, on pups from both groups and found that there were significant changes in DNA methylation. Pups whose mothers were exposed to DEHP while pregnant experienced DNA methylation that caused a chromosomal region significant in immune responsiveness to turn off, while pups whose mothers had no exposure to DEHP had no signs of DNA methylation.
The newfound information from the study adds more fuel to the fire in the battle against DEHP. It might not be long before we see as many “DEHP-free” labels as we do “BPA-free” labels.
Feature Image Source: Plastic Cups Rubbish by Global Panorama
