I believe everyone is familiar with the abbreviation DEHP. Its scientific name is di (2- ethylhexyl) phthalate, also known as dioctyl phthalate and dioctyl phthalate. Its chemical formula is C6H4(CO2C8H 17)2, which is an ester compound generated by phthalic acid and 2-ethyl hexanol.
Animal experiments show that the acute toxicity of DEHP is not great. Only 2 to 7 grams of DEHP can kill mice by intraperitoneal injection, which is similar to the amount of salt in cooking every day, and it is a relatively large dose. It is precisely because it is difficult for a small dose of DEHP to produce acute toxic effects that black-hearted producers in Taiwan Province Province dare to use it instead of palm oil and dope it into food additives.
But DEHP still has many potential chronic toxicity. In published research papers on the toxicity of DEHP, researchers have proved that DEHP has estrogen-like effects, hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, cell metabolism disorder, cardiovascular system disorder and carcinogenesis through animal experiments (mainly rodents), in vitro cell experiments or reviewing human exposure levels.
Therefore, according to these experimental results, people on the island who have been taking illegal additives for many years will wonder whether some frequently-occurring diseases that were previously attributed to modern life are also related to DEHP: such as heart disease, cancer, infertility, teratoma, feminization of boys, precocious puberty of girls ...
Review of dioxin events
Is DEHP really so terrible? Let's review an event twelve years ago.
During 1999, the laying rate of Belgian hens was low and broilers were infected. After investigation, it was found that Dutch feed suppliers mistakenly added fat containing dioxins to chicken feed, which made the dioxin content in feed exceed the standard by 200 times. Dioxin is easy to accumulate in adipose tissue, and the dioxin content in chicken fed with contaminated feed exceeds the standard by more than 1000 times, and these chickens are sold to Germany, France, the Netherlands and other countries, and are served on the dining tables of all Europeans.
Dioxin is a highly toxic persistent pollutant, and its acute toxicity is more than 1000 times that of potassium cyanide. However, chronic exposure at very low dose also has obvious carcinogenicity and hormone-like effects, and once it enters the human body, it is difficult to excrete it.
This incident caused great panic in Europe. Belgium's Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Health both resigned, eggs and poultry and their processed products were destroyed nationwide, and slaughterhouses across the country were suspended. For four months, all countries in the world banned the export of all meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products from Belgium.
In the end, this incident ended with the collective resignation of the then center-left government in Belgium.
However, when the public panic caused by the pollution accident gradually subsided, some researchers estimated what harm would be caused to people if they continued to ingest the toxic egg products at that time according to the content of dioxin in feed and its accumulation ability in organisms. The conclusion is that if a person wants to induce cancer by eating chicken contaminated with dioxin, he needs to eat half a chicken every day for 50 years without interruption.
There are several differences between the Belgian dioxin incident and the plasticizing turbidity incident: first, the Belgian incident was added by mistake, and DEHP in the turbidity agent was intentional; Secondly, dioxin is a highly toxic substance, which has obvious carcinogenic and hormone-like effects, and is easy to accumulate in human body, while DEHP is a low toxic substance with hormone-like effects, which may have potential carcinogenic effects and is easy to be excreted after entering human body; Thirdly, although the dioxin content in feed exceeds the standard by 200 times, the dioxin content is still extremely low due to the extremely low standard limit. The highest content of DEHP in cloud agent can reach about 50% of the mass of cloud agent, which should not be underestimated after being added to food.
Therefore, it cannot be simply said that this plasticizer incident is lighter or heavier than the dioxin incident 12 years ago. In fact, after any event that illegal additives cause public harm, we should specifically assess the toxicity risk by calculating the intake dose of people and the toxicity level of pollutants, rather than simply commenting on whether the added things are toxic.
Animal experiment about DEHP
Take the lemon flavor of power sports drink with the highest concentration of DEHP as an example, and compare it with the dose in the papers suspected of DEHP causing cancer and teratogenesis. The concentration of DEHP detected in this beverage is 34. 1ppm, which is 34. 1mg/kg. However, in the study of reproductive toxicity of mice born after maternal rats ingested DEHP during pregnancy [1], the sperm number and sperm activity of offspring rats decreased obviously, but the dose of DEHP in the feed eaten by maternal rats was 125- 1000 mg/kg, which was much higher than that of people in Taiwan Province province. In addition, mice eat DEHP as their only food, while people do not.
Similarly, in the study of cardiovascular system, it was found that when DEHP was given to mice by drinking water, the DEHP concentration that changed the organ coefficients of heart, liver and kidney was 500-2000 mg/kg [2]. The dose of chromosome damage in mice is1000-2,000 mg/kg [3], which may not eventually develop into a tumor.
In addition, DEHP metabolic pathways between rodents and humans are slightly different. Adults are more likely than mice to excrete DEHP through food intake. Therefore, drinking a bottle of this beverage may not necessarily have the harmful effects mentioned in the above paper in a short time.
In fact, when toxicology experiments are used for human risk assessment, there has always been this difficulty-how to convert the data results of animal experiments into values suitable for human beings. Because it is impossible to carry out large-scale human experiments, only retrospective population surveys are more reliable results. However, this kind of investigation is very difficult to implement, so there are few related documents compared with animal experiments.
Pregnant women and children should stay away from DEHP.
In the study of DEHP, we need to pay special attention to such a survey on DEHP concentration in pregnant women and postpartum baby signs [4]. It is found that if a mother gives birth to a baby boy, the concentration of DEHP in the mother's body and the penis diameter and anal distance of the baby are generally used to evaluate male signs. There is a negative correlation between them). That is to say, if the mother has high DEHP and its metabolites during pregnancy, her baby boy's penis may be thinner and the distance between anus and genitals may be shorter. However, the researchers believe that these values are of little significance to a certain person, and this correlation does not necessarily mean causality.
This result is mainly to remind everyone that it is risky for pregnant women to ingest DEHP, so it is necessary to pay attention to avoid contact. In addition, considering that the metabolism of DEHP in children is not as fast as that in adults, it can be said that DEHP poses a certain threat to children. In addition, there is not much evidence that adults exposed to low doses of DEHP will have cardiovascular damage, hepatorenal toxicity and tumor risk.
For this incident, we need to call on the government to punish the unfair behavior of "dirty" producers and strengthen the supervision of food processing. We also need to wait patiently for the relevant departments to do a retrospective study to evaluate the people's intake dose, instead of just panicking and making guesses without any scientific basis.
References:
[ 1]? Effect of oral di (2- ethylhexyl) phthalate during pregnancy and lactation on reproductive development of male offspring. Li Liping? Liu Xiufang and others. Journal of Environment and Health? 20 10,? vol27，？ Number two.
[2]? Experimental study on the damage of diethyl hexyl phthalate to various organs in mice. Zhang Wenhong? Dawn. ? Journal of Bengbu Medical College? 2005,? Number four.
[3]? Experimental study on teratogenicity and mutagenicity of di (2- ethylhexyl) phthalate. Cassie Wang? Li et al. Canceration, distortion and mutation. 2002,? Number two.
[4]? Environment? Phthalate ester? Exposure? Are you online? Relationship? Where to? Reproduction? The result? And then what? Other? Healthy? Endpoint? Are you online? Humans. ? Shana. h？ Swan. ? Environment? Research? 2008,? 108.