Colour Chart Shag Bands

crisis Are we what we eat?

By: Carlos Manuel Sancho z

are an invisible enemy, but very persistent. The chemicals are found in our food, even in apparently healthy, they can cause chronic diseases. The increase in asthma, fertility problems, diabetes and other autoimmune diseases point to what we eat.
So we asked the experts what is the evidence and what is being done to ensure our health. The answer, at least, disturbing. We are used to sound the trumpets of Revelation every few minutes, either by the "cows locas175 or influenza A. But the latest health scare in Europe has aired in whispers. The discovery of dioxin in animal feed, meat and eggs in Germany forced the closure of thousands of farms in January. Who remembers?

• Maybe our ability to shock has been dulled with both proclaim that wolf. "Dioxin carcinogens in a chicken leg? "Eggs suspects? Bah! The new wolf is howling in Fukushima and we get attenuated. However, the potential harm of dioxin detected in Germany and many other chemicals that are part of our daily menu should worry.

• So dangerous are dioxins? Yes suffices to recall that are an ingredient of Agent Orange, the defoliant used by U.S. in the Vietnam War. Today thousands of children are born with defects in the sprayed areas. How can a dioxin to a sausage? The German government blamed a manufacturer of feed used industrial grease. But many nutrition experts in toxicology and turn it over to the question. How can dioxins do not get our food? If you are everywhere! Plastics, pesticides, waste from the manufacture of chlorine fumes from the combustion of waste ... The worst thing is that once you get into the environment, it is very difficult to get rid of them. And they can end up in the food chain and without our knowledge, in our bodies.

• The emergence in recent years a new disease -multiple-chemical sensitivity is undoubtedly motivated by the proliferation of these substances. What about cancer, allergies, asthma, diabetes, infertility and senile dementia, whose incidence is increasing in industrialized countries in a spectacular way? there also to blame for pollution? At least in part, is very likely.

• According to World Health Organization, environmental factors are responsible for one of every four deaths. The report prepared for the European Science Foundation warns that the country boys industrialized countries have seen their sperm production by 40 percent in the last half century and believe that it has doubled the incidence of testicular cancer. Also, if the suspicions are confirmed in a real drop in testosterone levels, the effect on the increase of metabolic diseases such as diabetes, and cardiovascular events are more than disturbing. female pathologies such as endometriosis and polycystic ovary have also soared. The asthma rate has doubled since the 90's. And 50 studies have linked exposure to pollutants with a higher incidence of type 2 diabetes, which affects 10 percent of the English and metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance. One of these reports make a statistical projection does swallow: At this rate, by 2050, half the European population could be diabetic or suffering from other autoimmune diseases.

• What's happening? Nobody knows exactly. But every are increasingly those who look with apprehension at the synthetic molecules used in the packaging industry or as part of agricultural pesticides. Or they suspect of some additives food, such as sweeteners products Light , from soft drinks to sugar free gum. Or who doubt the safety of certain ingredients of cosmetic products that are absorbed through the skin, the tanning creams nanomolecules in and even some deodorants, arguing that breast tumors occur more frequently in the left upper quadrant chest, right where it is applied more of these health products, as most of the population is right-handed. O wondering what happens when the coating is heated non-stick pans, one of whose components is a fluorinated acid. Or aluminum pots may be linked to Alzheimer's. Or heavy metals that accumulate in the fat of some fish could be harmful to humans . Without going any further, in the Basque Country protests from parents has been able to withdraw from the school canteen menu of Vietnamese pangasius after the Organization of Consumers alerts of metal and pesticide levels found in fish from the Asian country.

• Although all molecules produced by industry chemical are not questioned, some of them, called "endocrine disruptors" because of its ability to affect our hormonal and metabolic systems, sit on the bench. The French Food Safety Agency has started this year a study on them, together with Germans and Americans. In Germany, the Greens are now the third political force with a manifesto of zero tolerance to these products. And in Spain, the draft new law general public health for the first time includes environmental health (Articles 84 to 86) and aims to give the ministry more effective inspection services and risk assessment of chemicals.

• closely examine these substances. Dioxins are part of the huge collection of persistent toxic pollutants (CTP ) that laboratories have expanded to over a hundred thousand chemicals that pervade current consumer products of all kinds. "These pollutants are found in many foods we eat every day, travel through our blood and stored in our body, "explains Miquel Porta, Professor of Public Health of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. "They usually come to us at low doses, especially through the most fat in foods. are lipophilic, meaning they dissolve in fat, and the body can not be excreted through the kidneys. So that we accumulate throughout our lives in the liver, pancreas, nervous system ... They are very resistant to degradation. If you are a woman and has a son, sure he will inherit a part of CTP. If now we stopped being exposed, its concentration in our bodies take from ten to thirty years to be halved. "

• Nobody argues that these products end up in ours. body. What the chemical industry puts into question is damaging to health. We know that many of these contaminants affect the hormones and may alter the immune system. in animals is more than proven. But what about humans? Chemical manufacturers cling to a top made by the doctor Swiss

• Paracelsus in the sixteenth century: "Nothing is poison, it's all poison. The difference is in the dose. " This principle guides all applicable health laws. Taking care not to exceed the maximum permitted, no problem. But the scientific community disagrees about the theoretical security. First, because many toxic chemicals are bioaccumulative. If you eat an infinitesimal doses, nothing happens. But if you take every day, year after year, and accumulates in your body for decades, it does not matter? And second, for the cocktail effect. A little bit of poison is bearable, "but hundreds of them? In 1930 he produced one million tons of chemicals a year. Now, 500 million.

• What do our governments? "Take some action but are very slow," laments Miquel Porta. The European Union adopted in 2005 the REACH Regulation, which aims to create a record of these substances and that manufacturers demonstrate that they are not harmful before allowing their sale. Laudable effort. The chemical industry lobbied then to Brussels, claiming that the rule would cost 5000 million euros and would require laying off 280,000 employees. But the initiative went ahead and in February announced with great fanfare its first achievement: registration of the first six substances "high concern" and subject to authorization, but may still be sold until 2014. Half a dozen. The problem is that laboratories invent 20 new molecules every day, 600 a month.

• And even if the products pose risks, it is very difficult establish a relationship between injury and substance. An ambitious French research ministry recently initiated study of 20,000 children from birth to identify the substances responsible for the pathologies that suffer along ... 20. While performing and arrive at some conclusion, what should I do? "Given the uncertainty should prevail precautionary principle", proposed by the experts. "But not all uncertainties, there is much scientific knowledge about the effects of CTP, the sufficient public and private policies much stronger" , stressed, meanwhile, Porta. Just remember what it took to prove the relationship between snuff and lung cancer. And to think, cynically, that the results of the studies depend largely on who pay them. Let bisphenols. A few weeks ago, the European Union has banned the plastic bottles (the toxic particles coming out when the container is heated). But after 40 years in use, is not it too late?

• "Maybe for us adults, yes, but we think of our children and our grandchildren," claims Isabelle Saporta, co of a devastating documentary titled Does eating can be bad for health? In research shows that in the grain silos are used several insecticides and fungicides. "Using refrigerated silos would avoid, but involves an extra cost of 13 euros per tonne of wheat that most of the industry is not willing to pay. Think about it when you give a morsel of bread. "Saporta tase proposes a tax of 40 percent the use of pesticides to reduce use and promote organic farming. "Humans Eat an apple, a very healthy habit in theory, it is very reassuring when you consider that may have been sprayed with pesticides and up to 26 we have found traces of five pesticides in laboratory tests." The meat is not above suspicion. "Do you know who consumes half of the antibiotics? Well, not people, at least not directly. They are pigs in pig farms. "