Zeitschrift für Ernährungsstörungen und Therapie

Abstrakt

Phthalates, our hidden enemy, our threatened future

Malak A. Alia

Our literature review study reflects the light on phthalates which are widely used in many & different aspects of our children daily practices & try to get the answers for the following important questions. How are we exposed to phthalates? Do these chemicals that our children are widely exposed to since even their prenatal period & throughout their lives have real high risks & dangers on their health? Is the use of these chemicals essential for our kids or we can avoid and replace them with other non-risky substances & hazardous chemical free products...!! Recently, a lot of systematic review studies have been done to investigate the possible relations between the most common chemical substances that we use daily and possible risks & health problems that may affect our children. Among the chemicals that have been studied intensively in the last few years are Phthalates which are known endocrine disruptors due to their anti-androgenic and/ or estrogenic effects!
The Purpose & Objectives: Our study is to provide an overview of phthalates which are widely and commonly chemicals used by our children daily, and the possible relations between their use and some of the common health problems & disorders that affect children in order to raise the awareness among parents & health care providers regarding their potential health impacts on children and to provide a proper guidance that help to minimize the avoidable exposure to these risky chemicals and replace them with hazardous chemicals free products till we get enough studies that prove or disprove their risks & effects.
Methods & Results: Our study tries to search through, emphasis on & spot the light on the use of phthalates that are commonly & widely used in most of our children life aspects, searches for their possible risks & hazards on our kids' health, tries to get relations & connections between these substances & common pediatric health problems & disorders. In our study we reviewed the data collected from many evidences based systematic reviews and Cohort studies have dealt with these hazardous substances & stated the high incidence of their risks & their bad impacts on our kids' health & prove the relation of these chemicals to certain problems that affect children.
Recommendations: Our study concluded & suggested that it is better to eliminate exposure to these chemicals as evidences are rising against their safety. It's very important to increase the awareness among parents & health care providers regarding the possible risks of these chemicals and provide them the most proven practical tips for their avoidance. Further epidemiological studies should be conducted in the future to enhance our knowledge in this area.