Plastic food wrap may make you sterile and cause cancer

August 25, 2015  14:54

Could cling film really make us sterile, or cause cancer? For decades, holistic health gurus have warned of the toxic impact of plastic. They have been dismissed as quacks – but now it seems their paranoia might have been justified.

New evidence suggests that heat makes chemicals in plastic storage boxes and bottles leach into food and drink: two major reports last year linked 175 compounds to health problems connected to cancers, fertility and foetal development.

Even Cancer Research UK, which has so far been sceptical, is now warning that cling film should not be allowed to touch the food it is covering during microwaving.

The chemical causing most concern is Bisphenol A (BPA), which is widely used in plastics manufacture. In the body, it mimics the effects of female sex hormone oestrogen. 
Laboratory studies have also linked BPA with breast and prostate cancer and early sexual development in women.

Andrea Gore, professor of pharmacology at the University of Austin in the US, who has studied the effects of chemicals on reproductive function, says: ‘I heat food only in glass or ceramic, and although I use cling film in my fridge to cover cooked food, I remove it before reheating that food in the microwave.’

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