Human exposure to chemical substances, environmental pollutants, which interfere in hormonal function, is an actual and worrying fact. There is scientifical proof that some chemical compounds outside the organism, natural o synthetic, behave as if they were, interfering in hormona production, liberation, biological activity and removal through different action mechanisms. Humans are exposed to a complex mixture of such substances.
The Environmental Medicine-Food Disruptors research group of the University of Granada, directed by Professor Nicolás Olea Serrano, deals with basic questions which have not been solved yet: Which is the human exposure degree? What are the most common risk sources? These researchers are pioneers in identificating unobserved exposure ways. In addition, they have developed an exposure biomarker that allows to quantify hormonal and/or toxic activity measured as total hormonal content in samples with different origins, composition and sources.
Food containers
The new doctoral thesis »Biological activity of environmental pollutants and active hormonal compounds in complex mixtures», presented by this scientific group, has been carried out by José Manuel Molina. He tackles the study of food containers and hormonal effects of a wide range of plant extracts. In the field of food safety, toxicological aspects related to hormonal activity in chemical compound waste released by small food containers and subsequently incorporated to foods have aroused great interest. For example, paper or cardboard containers used in boxes for pizzas or hamburgers, from four different European countries, turned out to be hormonally active in most of the analysed samples.
“The presence of chemical compounds of toxicologic interest in food containers manufacture is an emerging problem that should be studied in depth and evaluated in a responsible way, with the aim of acting preventively”, the persons in charge of the research point out. Most of the results have been obtained in collaboration with the food private sector.
Further information: Prof. Nicolás Olea Serrano.
Department of Radiology and Physical Medicine.
Phone number: 958 242864 / 958 242865.
E-mail:nolea@ugr.es
