Food packaging chemicals causing harmful to individuals over long term

The synthetic chemicals used in the packaging, storage, and processing of foodstuffs might be harmful to human health this is because most of these substances are not inert and can leach into the foods. Despite the fact that some of these chemicals are regulated, people who depend

upon packaged or processed foods are likely to be chronically exposed to low levels of these substances throughout their lives. Exposure to food contact materials i.e., substances used in packaging, storage, processing, or preparation equipment -- "is a cause for concern for several reasons."

It includes the fact that known toxicants, such as formaldehyde, a cancer-causing substance, are legally used in these materials. Formaldehyde is often present, albeit at low levels, in plastic bottles used for fizzy and cold drinks and melamine tableware. Secondly, other chemicals that disrupt hormone production also crop up in FCMs, including bisphenol A, tributyltin, triclosan, and phthalates. And, the result shows that a total number of known chemical substances used intentionally in FCMs exceed 4000.

Furthermore, potential cellular changes are caused by FCMs, and in particular, those with the capacity to disrupt hormones, are not even being considered in routine toxicology analysis, which prompts most of the scientists to suggest that this "casts serious doubts on the adequacy of chemical regulatory procedures." After obtaining the results scientists admit that establishing potential cause and effect as an estimation of lifelong and largely invisible exposure to FCMs will be no easy task, largely because there are no unexposed populations to compare with, and there are likely have wide variations in exposure levels among individuals and across certain population groups.

But some sort of population-based assessment and biomonitoring are urgently needed to tease out any potential links between food contact chemicals and many chronic conditions like cancer, obesity, diabetes, inflammatory and neurological disorders, particularly given the known role of environmental pollutants.

Food packaging containers like ZnO nanoparticles are present in the lining of certain canned goods for their antimicrobial properties and to prevent staining of sulfur-producing foods. In most of the study, canned corn, tuna, asparagus, and chicken were studied using mass spectrometry to estimate how many particles might be transferred to the food. It has been found that the food contained 100 times the daily dietary allowance of zinc.

It is difficult to say what the long-term effects of nanoparticle ingestion are on human health, especially based on results from a cell culture model, it is seen that our cell culture results are similar to results observed in animals and that the gut microbial populations are affected.