Chemical Exposure Causes Weight Gain and Increases Health Risks
by Nancy Hearn

Unbeknownst to many people, chemical exposure causes weight gain.

If you have steadily gained weight even though you have restricted calories and exercised regularly, you might want to consider evaluating your daily chemical exposure.

Or if you are having trouble losing those last five, ten or fifteen pounds, your exposure to certain types of chemicals in the foods you eat and the beverages you drink might be the reason why. 

5 Common Sources of Chemical Exposure

Weight management has a lot to do with our endocrine system. And Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, or EDCs, are natural and synthetic compounds that interfere with the fine balance of that system.

Most Americans ingest numerous EDCs on a daily basis without knowing it. Five of the most common sources of EDC exposure include:

1. Industrial pollutants and pesticides in drinking water
2. Pesticides in our food and beverages
3. Commercially-raised animal products
4. Fish with high levels of toxins like mercury and PCBs
5. Chemicals like bisphenol-A (BPA) and pthalates from plastic containers, water bottles, baby bottles and food wraps

EDCs Increase Health Risks

In a 2009 report by the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, EDCs are listed as a possible cause of the increase of obesity in the U.S. In fact, scientists are calling these chemicals "obesogens" because of their apparent link to obesity and weight gain.

EDCs can throw your endocrine system completely out of whack.

In fact, many of these chemicals mimic the hormone estrogen. In other words, they act like artificial female hormones and negatively affect both men and women.

Excess estrogen in the body has been linked in large clinical studies to increased risk of heart disease, stroke, blood clots, abnormal mammograms and even breast cancer. This is one of the main reasons many doctors are not recommending hormone replacement therapy to women anymore.

How Chemical Exposure Causes Weight Gain

According to Frederick vom Saal, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri, "Obesogens are thought to act by hijacking the regulatory systems that control body weight." 

In addition, EDCs are stored in the fatty tissue of the body to protect the critical organs from the damaging effects of these chemicals.

The body will not release these toxins (or metabolize the fat that stores them) until the body can safely remove them through the normal means of detoxification—breathing, sweating, urination and defecation. 

You can minimize the effect of EDCs by knowing how to reduce your exposure to them. 

In addition, it is essential to keep the body properly hydrated by drinking enough water daily to effectively flush the chemical toxins out of the body as quickly as possible.

References:

NBCNews.com; Fat Epidemic Linked to Chemicals Run Amok; 2010.

Newsweek.com; Why Chemicals Called Obesogens Make You Fat: 2009.

Further reading:

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals and Obesity - 5 Ways to Reduce Exposure

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