September 3, 2024 — For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has promoted the use of sludge from sewage treatment plants as fertilizer. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The sludge – known as biosolids in the fertilizer industry – is rich in nutrients that crops need. Plus, using biosolids for this purpose kept them out of […]
August 25, 2024 — When neuroscientists coined the phrase brain plasticity, they were certainly not thinking about microplastics accumulating in our brains. But unfortunately, it seems this is a phenomenon with implications we need to study. New NIH-funded research, published as a preprint, suggests these tiny particles are building up at an alarming rate. But it does not tell […]
August 4, 2024 — Warning: this is a bit of a rant, albeit a good-natured one. The persistent irritant of implicit ignorance about obesity confronts us in virtually every dialogue we have about obesity. Sometimes it gets to be too much. Specifically, it is the presumption woven into almost every conversation about obesity, that obesity is all about bad […]
June 8, 2024 — Puberty is coming earlier for girls today, obesity in children is rising, and endocrine disruption seems to be playing a role in both of these phenomena. What’s more, exposure to endocrine disruptors follows a pattern of health disparities. This means that these environmental hazards may have the greatest effects on populations that already suffer disadvantages […]
January 24, 2024 — Scientific publications keep sending us signals that all of the plastic we are heaping into our lives may be eating away at our health. Just this month alone, two new publications have us thinking about the disease burden that may result from exposure to the chemicals of plastics. One, in the Journal of the Endocrine […]
January 13, 2024 — A new study this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science tells us that every bottle of water we’re drinking has hundreds of thousands of nanoplastics. Should we care? A Blank Slate, Tough to Study This study is important simply because it fills a void in knowledge about how much these nanoplastics are […]
November 7, 2023 — A lifetime of exposure to endocrine disruptors can begin before a person is even born, and may put that person on a path to obesity and health complications. This is the implication of a new study in Environmental Health Perspectives. First author Parisa Montazeri explains: “Our findings underscore the potential impact of early-life chemical exposures […]
October 11, 2023 — Today is World Pet Obesity Awareness Day. So what can we make of the observation that our pets seem to be growing larger with us? We have the privilege of knowing two persons who have put much thought into this subject. So today, we will borrow on their insights. Chihuahua in the Coalmine Ernie Ward […]
August 18, 2023 — Health disrupting chemicals are spreading to the farthest reaches of the planet. Even on the remote Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, they’re showing up. Through carcinogenicity or obesogenicity, they can wreak havoc with our health. But as we follow the public discourse about the bad actors, one thing becomes quite clear. Carcinogenicity prompts alarm […]
May 19, 2023 — One question that holds us captive in obesity is the question of its origins. Why has its prevalence been rising so relentlessly now for decades? At ECO2023, this question inserted itself into one of the major themes of the meeting – a pursuit of the determinants of obesity. Commercial Determinants Emma Boyland and Aileen McGloin […]
