Comments on: New Theory: Plastic Can Make You Fat?

By: Jay Fox

Jay Fox — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:55:53 +0000

Plastics: The tobacco of the new millennium. The more the Big Chem companies insist they are safe, the more we should suspect otherwise. Take a look at the molecules associated with most plastics, and you’ll see that they come very close to resembling the very hormones controlling virtually everything in our bodies. To assume that there could be no problems with this fact is to be naive in the extreme.

You want a theory (or hypothesis)? How about plastics and autism? While there are still some anti-vax holdouts, the real problem contributing to the rise in autism and other developmental disorders is exposure to plastics. Obesity? Well, there probably is a link there, too, but we can’t rule out all the crap they put in processed foods. Those avoiding plastic are probably the same ones eating real, healthy food.

Prediction: More studies will be done, some revealing potential links to plastics and a myriad of health problems. Big Chem will sponsor more studies that show otherwise. The debate will go on for years. But the consequences of plastics will last for generations.

By: Kitty

Kitty — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:01:42 +0000

You may have something there. When my first two children were born, for the most part we used glass bottles. I used plastic with my third child. But with all my children, they were eating food by the time they were three months old. I breast fed for 6 weeks and my doctor had me start them on cereal and they had formula but by 3 months they started eating vegetables then meats and lastly fruits and desserts. My children were and still are all very healthy are not over-weight, never had cavities until they were in their twenties and are not picky eaters. Exposure to plastic was very little. Now everything the baby gets is in plastic for the first year almost. And they don’t start feeding them food until 6 or 9 months.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:35 +0000

Correlation is not causation. This is one of the weakest studies I have read about in months, if not years.

By: Guy

Guy — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:16:34 +0000

I think that Obesity is linked to people resisting passing gas, in the old days this was not a problem and it kept bystanders moving more often. That contributed to weight loss…

But please don’t stop the great articles coming.

By: Art

Art — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:06:02 +0000

Oh Karl; you jokester, you!

By: Karl

Karl — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:43:51 +0000

Please correct the headline. This idea is a hypothesis, not a theory. A general science magazine aimed at the public must help people distinguish these notions. Because common parlance blurs “theory” and “hypothesis”, the public has, for example, conflated the Hypothesis of Evolution with the Theory of Creationism.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:34:40 +0000

Couldn’t obesity in infants be related to the mother’s own weight, her diet during pregnancy and whether she has diabetes? Just last week there was a story in the news about the nineteen pound baby born to a diabetic mother in Indonesia. If more adults are obese doesn’t that mean more mothers-to-be are also obese? How does this affect the baby?

By: Gil

Gil — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:00:20 +0000

Wouldn’t it violate thermodynamics to have weight gain not correlate to calories eaten minus calories burned?

By: Dennis

Dennis — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:54:16 +0000

It really plays hell with my BS detector when they create names like “obesogens”.

By: Wellescent Health Blog

Wellescent Health Blog — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:12:38 +0000

It would be interesting to know whether obesity from exposure to plastics is due to hormone disruption. So many of the chemicals that humans introduce to the environment seem to have this unintended effect on both ourselves and other organisms.