Embedded Files
How long do these chemicals really last?
How long do these chemicals really last?
By Emily St. Denis
Imagine you're standing in the grocery store or looking at the shelves in Ulta, trying to select a personal care product. Whether you're choosing a shampoo, face wash, or deodorant, often the first thing that comes to mind is "Is it really worth the extra 50 cents for name brand" or "Which scent do I like better?" However, the unfortunate reality points to a far more pressing question, that being: "How will this product impact the health and wellness of my future generations?"
A scary reality is that, unfortunately, each chemical exposed to your body is also exposing and impacting your future unborn generations.1 This phenomenon occurs through effects known as transgenerational and intergenerational effects.
While similar, intergenerational and transgenerational effects are differentiated by whether the exposure to chemicals is direct or indirect, but that might not mean what you think. Intergenerational effects impact both male and female fetuses who are directly exposed with their pregnant mother. However, they take on a more severe and long-term danger in female fetuses whose egg-containing gonads are also exposed.2 As such, intergenerational impacts are seen up to and including unborn grandchildren, also known as the F2 generation. In medicine, the current exposed person is recognized as F0, while their direct descendant is known as F1. F1’s direct descendant, who would be F0’s grandchild, is denoted F2.4 Please view the graphic to the right for additional clarification.
Intergenerational exposures include unborn grandchildren in women, because a woman is born with all her eggs, meaning that before she is born her eggs are developing while she is still in the womb, allowing grandchildren to be impacted by their grandmother's exposures3. This is not the case in men because men are not born with their germline genetic material, but rather continuously make sperm throughout their lifetime limiting exposure to only the F1 generation. Please view the graphic to the left for further clarification.
The potential that chemicals in personal care and other products have to harm future unborn and not-yet-conceived generations is through something called transgenerational impacts. These are the impacts seen in generations that did not receive the direct exposure that in women F0-F2 or in men F0-F1 received. In other terms, these are the long term effects seen in future generations, often F3 and on. While you may intrinsically believe that these are not as severe due to indirect exposure, these transgenerational effects have been known to have serious negative effects including decreased intelligence, fertility, and general health.
The impact of intergenerational and transgenerational EDC exposures can be highly detrimental to human health. In short, some of the other negative effects can be rapid metabolism of drugs, altered hormone levels, cancer, and even birth defects. However, despite the severity of these impacts on humans, there have been few studies due to the many limitations in studying the field of generational effects. One such limitation is the overwhelming amount of confounding factors and difficulty of establishing a controlled environment. Another further limitation is the ethics of subjecting humans, especially the unborn who have no say in their health or chosen exposures, to harmful chemicals. To help avoid this, many scientists use animal models. This can be beneficial for initial study, however there are severe limitations considering the divide in our biology.4
Additionally, even if people are aware of the possible risks, it can be difficult for consumers to make choices to protect their health. First, there is a large-scale lack of ingredient regulation by the FDA. Most negative chemicals are buried deep into the list of ingredients on labels, and when a warning is included it is often only the state-mandated cancer notice required by Proposition 65.5 Unfortunately, however, by labeling everything that carries a 1 in 100,000 risk of producing cancer, people become desensitized to the labels and ignore them.
While it can be daunting to consider, and there is still a lot more to be researched, it is clear that the chemicals a person is exposed to throughout their lifetime have the potential to severely impact future generations. So next time you’re looking to pick up your favorite product, it might be important to do a bit of research into what chemicals are present, and how they may impact both your health and the health of your future generations.
Silver M. & Meeker J., Chapter 14 - Endocrine Disruption of Developmental Pathways and Children's Health, Endocrine Disruption and Human Health (Second Edition), Academic Press, 2022, Pages 291-320, ISBN 9780128219850, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-821985-0.00016-5
Klengel, T., Dias, B. G., & Ressler, K. J. (2016). Models of Intergenerational and Transgenerational Transmission of Risk for Psychopathology in Mice. Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 41(1), 219–231. https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2015.249
Brehm, E., & Flaws, J. A. (2019). Transgenerational Effects of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals on Male and Female Reproduction. Endocrinology, 160(6), 1421–1435. https://doi.org/10.1210/en.2019-00034
Gillette, R., Dias, M., Reilly, M. P., Thompson, L. M., Castillo, N. J., Vasquez, E. L., Crews, D., et al. (2022). Two Hits of EDCs Three Generations Apart: Effects on Social Behaviors in Rats, and Analysis by Machine Learning. Toxics, 10(1), 30. MDPI AG. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics10010030
Da Cruz Raquel, S., Chen, E., Smith, M., Bates, J., De Assis, S. (2020). Diet and Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance of Breast Cancer: The Role of the Paternal Germline. Frontiers in Nutrition (7) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2020.00093.
Page updated
Report abuse