Diabetes

More people are finally beginning to realize that everyday household cleaning and laundry chemicals cause health issues. What does it take to get the rest of them to switch to safer more effective cleaning products that save them money and without polluting our environment? Not to mention the fact that a U.S. company manufactures these safer products keeping jobs in American and supporting our tax base for schools, education and transportation.

With diabetes at epidemic levels, this is an interesting and timely post. Diabetes appears to have a relationship to chemicals in the environment. Essentially what the report says is that Persistent Organic Pollutants, or POPS, which are carbon-based chemicals (often containing chlorine), resist biodegradation and build up in the environment and inside people, too. Our bodies manufacture an enzyme called GGT that scientists have learned is a strong indicator of diabetes. The higher your GGT levels, the more likely you are to be diabetic. Researchers have also discovered that GGT plays a big role in clearing POPs out of our cells. The science team started to wonder: Is GGT simply a marker for the true cause of this epidemic and are POPs the real culprit where diabetes is concerned?

Scientists discovered that people with the highest levels of POPs were found to have a rate of diabetes 38 times that of those with the lowest levels. And weight had nothing to do with it. Skinny people with high levels of POPs were likely to be diabetic. Obese people with low levels of POPs were not.

This is all preliminary research but it does put an interesting spin on how important it may be to clean out that cupboard and really convert to safe alternatives in our homes. One of the suspected chemical groups is dioxins. You will find this in many of the typical cleaner and personal care products people purchase every day at the store.

The original document was published in the New Scientist.