Chemicals, known as phthalates, found in plastics and processed food may damage heart health in children and teens, a new study has warned.
Phthalates are odourless, colourless plastic additives that turn up in flooring, plastic cups, beach balls, plastic wrap and intravenous tubing.
A growing collection of evidence suggests dietary exposure to phthalates (which can leech from packaging and mix with food) may cause significant metabolic and hormonal abnormalities, especially during early development.
Now, new research in the Journal of Pediatrics suggests that certain types of phthalates could pose another risk to children - compromised heart health.
Drawing on data from a nationally representative survey of nearly 3,000 children and teens, researchers at New York University Langone Medical Center, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Washington and Penn State University School of Medicine, have documented for the first time a connection between dietary exposure to DEHP (di-2-ethyhexylphthalate).
DEHP is a common class of phthalate widely used in industrial food production, and elevated systolic blood pressure, a measure of pressure in the arteries when the heart contracts.
"Phthalates can inhibit the function of cardiac cells and cause oxidative stress that compromises the health of arteries. But no one has explored the relationship between phthalate exposure and heart health in children," said lead author Leonardo Trasande, associate professor of pediatrics, environmental medicine and population health at NYU Langone Medical Center.
"We wanted to examine the link between phthalates and childhood blood pressure in particular given the increase in elevated blood pressure in children and the increasing evidence implicating exposure to environmental exposures in early development of disease," Trasande said.
Researchers examined six years of data from a nationally representative survey of the US population administered by the National Centers for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Phthalates were measured in urine samples using standard analysis techniques.
The researchers found that every three-fold increase in the level of breakdown products of DEHP in urine correlated with a roughly one-millimetre mercury increase in a child's blood pressure.
"That increment may seem very modest at an individual level, but on a population level such shifts in blood pressure can increase the number of children with elevated blood pressure substantially," said Trasande.
