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Okay this piece won’t exactly make you neat freaks feel any better. Here I am visibly upset writing this.

A new study released by Duke University, reports how minor amounts of household dust rife with specific environmental pollutants can cause fat cells to build up triglycerides (fat).

It is common knowledge that an unhealthy diet combined with minimal physical activity is largely responsible for the global obesity epidemic. Through the study, scientists witnessed fat buildup in a lab dish yet it is believed that the results are applicable to human beings who reside in living spaces with even a moderate amount of dust.

EDC is an acronym that stands for endocrine-disrupting chemicals. These can either be naturally occurring or synthetic compounds and can interfere or copy the human body’s hormones. EDCs like flame retardants, bisphenol-A and phthalates are known for potential effects on the human body’s immune, neurological and reproductive functions. Animal studies have previously indicated exposure to certain EDCs early in life can spur weight gain in later years. This is why such EDCs are now being referred to as obesogens.

EDC exposure even spurs a number of other problems the scientific community has not yet identified.

Although some manufacturers have

decreased the amount of EDCs in their offerings, many EDCs are still widely present across all sorts of consumer goods. These chemicals end up reaching indoor dust where they are subsequently inhaled, ingested and even absorbed directly through the skin. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, children consume upwards of 50 milligrams of household dust every single day.

Concerned about the potential effects EDCs in dust might have on children’s health, Dr Heather Stapleton and her colleagues from the Duke University wanted to see if the compounds in house dust might have an effect on fat cells.

The detailed results following the evaluation of 44 household dust contaminants appeared July 12 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. It shows how amounts of dust as low as 3 μg—well below the mass of dust that children are exposed to daily—caused measurable effects.

“The adipogenic activity in house dust occurred at concentrations below EPA estimated child exposure levels, and raises concerns for human health impacts, particularly in children,” the authors of the current study concluded.

“Our results delineate a novel potential health threat and identify putative causative SVOCs that are likely contributing to this activity. There are no known classical genetic mechanisms that could explain the remarkable changes in body composition that have occurred over recent decade. Therefore, there has been a significant focus on identifying changes in gene expression and epigenetic marks caused by environmental factors, such as stress, drugs (for example nicotine), and a number of endocrine disrupting chemicals during development (in utero and early childhood) in relation to the risk of metabolic diseases later in life.”

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