Sandhya Raghavan
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Written By: Sandhya Raghavan | Published : November 6, 2017 1:20 PM IST
If you are putting on weight despite proper diet and exercise, it's time you took a good look around your house. Because a new study says that the dust accumulating inside your house could make you fat. It's not the dust per se that makes you fat but the chemicals in your cleaning products and environmental contaminants that mingle with the dust. Chemical cleaning products are loaded with harmful, toxic substances that can disrupt your metabolic process, causing weight gain among other problems. The problem is particularly dangerous if you have a child.
Study says that ever since World War II, approximately 80,000 chemicals have been released into the air and 1500 new ones have been added to the air every year.1 These chemicals are not tested on human health or how they impact the growth of children. But each of us is exposed to these chemicals not only through food and water but also air. These chemicals are also entering our houses and lingering inside as dust, causing us a great deal of health hazards, one of which is metabolic damage. The 2017 study mentioned in the beginning of the article was published in Environmental Science & Technology. It focused its attention on the adipogenic or fat-causing activities of indoor house dust and semivolatile organic chemicals that are often found in indoor environments. The researchers studied the dust collected from eleven homes and exposed it to fat cells from mice. Astoundingly, the samples made the fat cells to divide and multiply.2
The study revealed that chemicals contained in our everyday cleaning items, plastic household tools, air fresheners and candles contained toxic agents like phthalates and BPA. These chemicals somehow, wind up in the dust accumulating in our house, which can then end up ingested or inhaled. Apart from making us fat, these chemicals are known to disrupt hormones, contributing to a variety of lifestyle diseases and cancers. If the results of the study are to go by, it could explain why more and more people are falling prey to these diseases.
What should you do?
Read previous weight loss tip.
References:
1.Lloyd Smith, M., & Sheffield Brotherton, B. (2008). Children's environmental health: intergenerational equity in action a civil society perspective. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1140(1), 190-200.
2.Kassotis, C. D., Hoffman, K., & Stapleton, H. M. (2017). Characterization of Adipogenic Activity of House Dust Extracts and Semi-Volatile Indoor Contaminants in 3T3-L1 Cells. Environmental Science & Technology, 51(15), 8735-8745.
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