The weight of pollution: exposure linked to obesity

Chronic exposure to environmental pollutants found to increase risk of cardiovascular disease

08-Nov-2023 - In an era where exposure to commonly used pollutants present in our environment, in our homes and in our food, is virtually inevitable, ground-breaking research conducted by Professor Brice Appenzeller of the Luxembourg Institute of Health has unveiled a profoundly surprising health outcome of ...

New insight into how long-banned chemicals unleash their toxicity inside the body

28-Nov-2022 - Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were widely used in industrial and commercial products including plastics, paints, electronic equipment and insulating fluids. Their manufacture was extensively banned from the late 70s onwards due to their toxicity, however large amounts still remain in our ...

The Secret Contamination of Polar Bears

Hundreds of unrecognized halogenated contaminants discovered in polar bear serum

05-Dec-2018 - Using a new approach to measure chemical contaminants in polar bears, scientists from Canada and the United States found a large variety of new chlorinated and fluorinated substances, including many new polychlorinated biphenyl metabolites. Worryingly, these previously unrecognized contaminants ...

The cycling of poisonous chemicals from the past

Monsoon remobilizes phased-out chemicals stored in South Asian soils

15-Aug-2018 - Persistent organic pollutants are toxic chemicals that cannot decompose in nature, or only do so very slowly, and are harmful to the environment. Through accumulation along food chains they also have significant negative effects on human health. Nowadays, many of them are banned. Traces of those ...

Melting ice sheet could release frozen Cold War-era waste

08-Aug-2016 - In the 1960s, a military camp situated beneath the ice in Greenland was abandoned. Now, an international study in collaboration with the University of Zurich has revealed: Climate change could remobilize the abandoned hazardous waste believed to be buried forever beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet. ...

When thawing glaciers release pollutants

19-Nov-2014 - As glaciers increasingly melt in the wake of climate change, it is not only the landscape that is affected. Thawing glaciers also release many industrial pollutants stored in the ice into the environment. Now, within the scope of a Swiss National Science Foundation project, researchers from the ...

Environmental contaminants in foodstuffs

BfR research project on the intake of heavy metals and dioxins completed

14-Jan-2011 - The final report of the research project "Foodborne exposure to environmental contaminants" (LExUKon) is now available. In this project scientists of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) have calculated, together with colleagues from the Research and Advisory Institute for Hazardous ...

White, but not pure

Scientists detect PCBs on America’s highest peak

10-Dec-2009 - Conception/Leipzig. Even the snow on Aconcagua Mountain in the Andes is polluted with PCBs. An international team of researchers detected low concentrations of these toxic, carcinogenic chlorine compounds in samples taken from America's highest mountain. The snow samples taken at an altitude of ...

Flame retardants in breast milk - no risk to infants in Germany

20-Jul-2005 - Residues of flame retardants in breast milk do not constitute a risk for breastfed infants in Germany. This is confirmed by a study carried out by the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) on behalf of the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA). In the study, which is part of the Action ...

Eurofins achieves breakthrough in sensitivity for detecting brominated and mixed halogenated dioxins

07-Jul-2003 - Dioxin and furans analysis requires state-of-the art technology to detect even minute traces of these Persistant Organic Pollutants (POPs). This is necessary, because even very small amounts can severely damage human and animal health and, consequently, strict maximum values are imposed by the ...