A study shows that children in particular pre-school kids are highly exposed to cancer-causing chemicals like arsenic, dieldrin, acrylamide, DDE and dioxin
In a recent study, researchers at University of California, Davis and University of California, Los Angeles found that children in particular pre-school kids are at high risk of exposure to cancer-causing carcinogens like dioxin, arsenic, dieldrin, dioxin, dichlorodiphenylethylene or DDE (the metabolite of DDT pesticide) and acrylamide. These cancer-causing chemicals have also been linked to other health problems including birth defect and developmental and neurological problems.
The study shows that 100% of 364 children including 207 preschool children (two to four years old) and 157 school-age children (five to seven years old) exceeded cancer benchmarks for DDE, dioxin, arsenic and dieldrin. Also, more than 95% of preschool children exceeded non-cancer risk level for acrylamide which is a byproduct in certain foods like potato, tortilla chips, baking goods and crackers cooked at high temperature.
According to ucdmc.ucdavis.edu, the principal investigator of the study and professor of public health sciences and chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health at UC Davis, Dr Irva Hertz-Picciotto said that “Contaminants get into our food in a variety of ways. They can be chemicals that have nothing to do with the food or byproducts from processing. We wanted to understand the dietary pathway pesticides, metals and other toxins take to get into the body”.
Also, the leading author of the study, Dr. Rainbow Vogt mentioned that “we focused on children because early exposure can have long-term effects on disease outcomes. Currently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency only measures risk based on exposures of individual contaminants. We wanted to understand the cumulative risk from dietary contaminants. The results of this study demonstrate a need to prevent exposure to multiple toxins in young children in order to lower their cancer risk.”
"We need to be especially careful about children, because they tend to be more vulnerable to many of these chemicals and their effects on their health and developing brain." ~ Irva Hertz-Picciotto
What’s really disturbing about this study is that preschool-age children had higher exposure to cancer causing chemicals that can also increase the risk of neurological problems and cancer. "Varying our diet and our children's diet could help reduce exposure," said Hertz-Picciotto. "Because different foods are treated differently at the source, dietary variation can help protect us from accumulating too much of any one toxin."
How to remove these toxic chemicals from your diet and diet of your children:
The study highlights strategies for families to lower their exposures to toxic pesticides and chemicals by purchasing organic produce. Here are the toxic chemicals in this study:
-Arsenic: Finally, FDA came out clean and admitted that the food industry has been adding arsenic to the diet of animals. Arsenic exists in poultry, farmed fish, cereals and mushrooms.
-Mercury: Mercury exists in farmed fish, seafood and high mercury fish. But salmon is a great source of protein, vitamin B12 and omega3 and the safest fish is wild sockeye salmon (lowest mercury fish=0.09).
- DDE: Although one of the toxic masterpieces of Monsanto called “DDT” also known as pesticide weed killer has been banned for 40 years, the study shows significant levels of DDE (DDT’s break-down products) in pre-school children. DDE can be found in meat, potatoes, dairy, farmed fish and meat.
- Dioxin: Not only Monsanto poisoned Vietnamese civilians with “Agent Orange”, Monsanto and Dow are now moving forward to manufacture “Agent Orange Corn”. Dioxin is the main ingredient in Agent Orange, also known as the most toxic and poisonous small molecule on the planet. Dioxin can be found in dairy, meat, cereals, mushrooms and potatoes.
- Acrylamides: Acrylamides exists in most processed foods like chips, crackers, french fries and cereals. The co-author of the study Deborah Bennett, associate professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at UC Davis said that “Even if we set aside the potential toxins in processed foods like Dioxin, we probably shouldn't be eating large amounts of them anyway. However, we should be eating fruits, vegetables and fish, which are generally healthy foods. We just need to be more careful in how we approach them."
- Dieldrin: Dieldrin exists in dairy, pizza, cantaloupe, cucumber and meat.
- Pesticides: The study shows that the exposure to pesticides was also high in foods like peaches, tomatoes, apples, lettuce, grapes, peppers, broccoli, strawberries, spinach, pears, celery, green beans and dairy.
What to do:
Families should reduce their consumption of animal fats and meat and switch to organic fruits and vegetables. They should also eliminate their consumption of processed foods, sodas and conventionally grown foods. Learn how to avoid buying GMO foods and conventional foods that can have up to 4,000 chemicals: http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/does-organic-mean-non-gmo-organic-health-benefits.php
Sources:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=1&po=7
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/2012-2013/12/20121212_food-borne_toxins.html
