
Chemicals used in cosmetics and household goods linked to 350,000 deaths every year, warn experts
Called phthalates, the chemicals are often added to plastic items like food containers, as well as makeup, shampoo, nail varnish, hair spray and perfume.
1
They also crop up in detergents, solvents, plastic toys and bug repellents.
These chemicals break down into microscopic particles and are ingested, with studies suggesting that frequent exposure to them could cause health problems.
Research has previously linked phthalate exposure to an increased risk of such as obesity, diabetes, fertility issues and even cancer.
Now, researchers from NYU Langone Health say hundreds of thousands of global deaths from heart disease could be linked to phthalates.
They suggested that 356,000 people may have died from phthalate-related heart disease in 2018 alone.
Their study focused on a kind of phthalate called di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), which is used to make food containers, medical equipment, and other plastic items softer and more flexible.
"The past decade has presented a new and previously unrecognised risk for cardiovascular disease: exposure to plastic polymers and their chemical additives," they wrote in the journal eBiomedicine.
"Of particular concern are phthalates, particularly one class of DEHP, which are used to soften polyvinylchloride (PVC) plastics."
Previous research has suggested that frequent DEHP exposure may trigger an overactive immune response or inflammation in the heart's arteries, which over time is associated with increased risk of heart attack or stroke.
They examined the impact of DEHP on global deaths across 200 countries and territories, using health and environmental data, as well as urine samples containing chemical breakdown products left by the plastic additive.
The 6 everyday items 'poisoning' you with toxic plastics linked to cancer
The authors estimated that DEHP exposure contributed to 356,238 deaths in 2018 among men and women aged 55 to 64.
They said this accounted for more than 13 percent of all global deaths from heart disease.
Lead author Sara Hyman, an associate research scientist at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said: 'By highlighting the connection between phthalates and a leading cause of death across the world, our findings add to the vast body of evidence that these chemicals present a tremendous danger to human health."
While phthalates are widely used across the world, they found people in the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific were more vulnerable to health effects.
Three fourths of the 356,238 deaths occurred in these regions.
"Our study provides, to the best of our knowledge, a previously unknown global estimation of the burden of cardiovascular mortality attributable to DEHP exposure," researchers said.
"The present disease burden model not only quantifies DEHP-related cardiovascular deaths but also highlights significant geographic disparities, showing that regions such as Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia bear the highest burden of DEHP-attributable deaths.
"By focusing on plastic production, consumption, and disposal our findings demonstrate the wide-reaching public health implications of DEHP exposure and how plastic-related chemicals disproportionately impact countries on the Asian continent."
What you need to know about phthalates
Phthalates are chemical compounds mainly used as plasticisers - additives that make plastic flexible.
There has been increased focus on phthalates due to their widespread use in our everyday products, and because there are more and more studies that suggest that phthalates may cause long-term adverse health effects.
Here are some of the product categories that may contain phthalates:
Plastic toys
Coatings
Cosmetics and personal care
Wood finishes
Detergents
Adhesives
Plastic FCMs and other plastic materials
Lubricants
Solvents
Insecticides
Building materials
India had the highest death count, at 103,587 deaths, followed by China and Indonesia.
Researchers said a possible explanation for this could be that these countries face higher rates of exposure to the chemicals, possibly because they are undergoing a boom in plastic production but with fewer manufacturing restrictions than other regions.
Senior author Dr Leonardo Trasande said: 'There is a clear disparity in which parts of the world bear the brunt of heightened heart risks from phthalates.
"Our results underscore the urgent need for global regulations to reduce exposure to these toxins, especially in areas most affected by rapid industrialisation and plastic consumption."
Dr Trasande noted that the study doesn't show that that DEHP is the lone or direct cause of heart disease, nor did researchers take into account the possible health risks of other types of phthalates.
The researchers also didn't examine other age groups except 55 to 64-year-olds.
As a result, the overall death toll from heart disease connected to these chemicals is likely much higher, Dr Trasande claimed.
Researchers next plan to track how reductions in phthalate exposure may, over time, affect global mortality rates, as well as to expand the study to other health concerns posed by the chemicals, such as premature birth.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Daily Record
13 hours ago
- Daily Record
Man dragged to death in MRI scanner was wearing 9kg chain around neck
Keith McAllister entered the room to come to his wife's assistance when the tragedy unfolded. A man who tragically died after being pulled into an MRI machine was wearing a 9kg weight-training chain around his neck while his wife was undergoing a scan, officials have revealed. According to local cops, Keith McAllister, 61, entered the MRI room at Nassau Open MRI in Long Island, New York, while his wife's knee was being examined. The man's wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, said she had called out to her husband for assistance when the incident unfolded. "I yelled out Keith's name, [shouting] Keith, come help me up," she said. Ms Jones-McAllister recounted how her husband entered the scanning room still wearing the heavy metal chain he regularly used for weight training, reports the Mirror. "I saw the machine snatch him around and pull him into the machine," she said through tears. "He died, he lost, he went limp in my arms." The powerful magnetic force generated by the MRI scanner drew McAllister into the machine by the chain, resulting in what police described as a 'medical episode.' Keith was left in a critical condition and rushed to hospital. Ms Jones-McAllister said her husband suffered a series of heart attacks after being freed from the machine, and was later pronounced dead. MRI, or Magnetic Resonance Imaging, is a non-invasive medical imaging technique that uses powerful magnets and radio waves to produce detailed images of internal structures within the body. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering warns that the magnetic field generated by an MRI machine is strong enough to pull ferromagnetic objects with deadly force. "Very powerful forces are exerted on objects made of iron, some steels, and other magnetic materials," it says, noting the field can be 'strong enough to fling a wheelchair across the room'. MRI-related accidents are rare but can prove fatal when they do occur. However, this is not the first such incident in New York. In 2001, Michael Colombini, 6, was killed at the Westchester Medical Centre when an oxygen tank was pulled into an MRI chamber by the machine's 10-ton electromagnet.


NBC News
2 days ago
- NBC News
Could cancer drugs be the future of Alzheimer's treatment?
With few treatments available to stop or reverse Alzheimer's disease, scientists have turned to cancer drugs as a potential means of walking back cognitive decline. Alzheimer's cases are rising in the United States and worldwide due to an aging population, but there is no cure for the disease. Attempts to develop new treatments that slow the disease's progress, rather than lessen symptoms, have frequently failed. Only two drugs — the antibody therapies Leqembi and Kisunla — are currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration to slow the progression of early Alzheimer's, and scientists say their benefits are limited. Some pharmaceutical companies have halted or abandoned their Alzheimer's drug development programs because of unsuccessful trials. Others are trying to use existing medications, including popular weight loss drugs, to combat Alzheimer's. With that in mind, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco conducted a broad search for drugs that could be repurposed to treat the condition — in theory, reducing the time in which the drugs could be made available to patients. They scoured a database of more than 1,300 drugs of various classes, including antipsychotics, antibiotics, antifungals and chemotherapy drugs. Then, they looked at how those drugs affected gene expression. Their new study, published Monday in the journal Cell, identified two cancer drugs as the best candidates to lower Alzheimer's risk in patients. When combined, the drugs seemed to slow or reverse Alzheimer's symptoms in mice. One of the drugs is normally used to treat breast cancer, while the other is effective against colon and lung cancer. Alzheimer's disease is associated with significant changes in the way genes are expressed in the brain, leading to the increased production of certain proteins and the decreased production of others. These imbalances may disrupt brain function and contribute to symptoms like memory loss. Fewer than 90 drugs in the researchers' database reversed the expression of signature Alzheimer's-related genes in human brain cells. And five drugs in particular seemed to lower the risk of Alzheimer's in actual patients, based on electronic medical records. The authors ultimately selected two of those drugs, both approved by the FDA to treat cancer, to test in mice. 'We didn't expect cancer drugs to come up' as the most promising, said Marina Sirota, a co-author of the study and interim director of the UCSF Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute. The authors said the breast cancer drug letrozole seemed to change gene expression in nerve cells. And the colon and lung cancer drug irinotecan seemed to change gene expression in glial cells, which support the nervous system. Alzheimer's can destroy nerve cells and cause glial cells to proliferate, creating inflammation in the brain. In a 2020 study, breast cancer patients who received letrozole were less likely to develop Alzheimer's than patients who did not receive the drug. Colorectal cancer survivors treated with irinotecan also had a decreased Alzheimer's risk, according to a 2021 study. After testing the drugs in mice, the study authors found that the two-drug combo reversed brain degeneration and improved memory in mice that had developed hallmarks of Alzheimer's as they aged. Because results in mice often don't translate to humans, the researchers hope to test the drugs in a clinical trial with Alzheimer's patients. 'Developing a new drug can take hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars, on average take more than 10 years. For this repurposed drug, usually it just takes two or three years, and then you can go to the clinical trial and the cost is much, much lower,' said Dr. Yadong Huang, a co-author of the study and professor of neurology at UCSF. 'We still haven't generated or produced any very effective drugs that can really slow dramatically the cognitive decline,' he added. Part of the difficulty in developing drugs for Alzheimer's is the complexity of the disease. Its exact cause is largely unknown. For now, the authors said, it's unclear exactly why the cancer drugs seem to work against Alzheimer's. One theory is that the breast cancer drug blocks the production of estrogen, a hormone that controls the expression of a large number of genes. The colon and lung cancer drug may also block inflammation in the brain by preventing the proliferation of glial cells — though Huang said there are other possibilities. Dr. Melanie McReynolds, an assistant professor of biochemistry at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the study, offered another theory. Her research has suggested that a different type of cancer drug could help treat Alzheimer's by regulating glucose metabolism, the process by which cells make energy. McReynolds said the process is necessary for various brain cells to communicate with each other. 'With aging, with stress, with diseases, that line of communication is disrupted,' she said. McReynolds said the drug combo tested in the new study might reverse metabolic decline — what she called 'the secret for contributing to better outcomes with Alzheimer's.' But assessing how Alzheimer's patients tolerate the combination of cancer drugs will be important. Letrozole can cause hot flashes and irinotecan can cause severe diarrhea. Both drugs can lead to nausea and vomiting. 'These drugs have huge side effects, so you need to always balance and figure out whether those types of side effects would be amenable to somebody with Alzheimer's,' Sirota said. 'It's not that it's a slam dunk.'


STV News
4 days ago
- STV News
Premature babies to be given new RSV vaccine
Premature babies can be given a new vaccine against a potentially life-threatening infection from later this year, the Scottish Government has confirmed. Public health minister Jenni Minto said the jab will be available for babies born before 32 weeks to protect them against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) over the winter period. Higher risk babies can receive the nirsevimab vaccine from September – with the single jab replacing five monthly injections previously given to infants classed as being at high risk. The move comes after advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. Minto said RSV 'can be life-threatening to babies born very early'. She added: 'That is why I am pleased the single jab will be offered by all NHS boards across Scotland from this September, helping to protect these high-risk infants over winter. 'We will continue to work hard to protect Scotland's most vulnerable groups against the respiratory illnesses which circulate throughout the colder months. 'Our various prevention programmes help reduce avoidable admissions to hospital and therefore the pressure on our NHS.' RSV can lead to life-threatening pneumonia and the lung infection bronchiolitis in babies. The new vaccine comes after Scotland was the first nation in the UK to introduce another RSV jab, Abrysvo, for pregnant women and older adults last August. More than 70% of eligible older adults were given Abrysvo, with a study by Public Health Scotland, which was published in the Lancet, showing a 62% reduction in RSV-related hospitalisations amongst this group. Dr Sam Ghebrehewet, head of vaccination and immunisation at Public Health Scotland, said: 'The last year has seen significant progress in efforts to protect those most vulnerable to RSV, including the introduction of the maternal RSV vaccine which is offered at 28 weeks of pregnancy and helps protect newborn babies from serious illness. 'Babies born prematurely are at highest risk of serious complications from RSV and we welcome this programme expansion, which will help to ensure that even more babies are protected during their most vulnerable early months.' Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country