The use of chemicals called phthalates, which fall into the manufacture of plastic household items, contributes to cardiovascular disease and could be linked to more than 356,000 deaths worldwide in 2018, according to a study published on Tuesday.
Published in the journal Lancet Ebiomicine and led by researchers from the Nyu Langone Hospital in New York, these works in particular operate data from cardiovascular mortality attributed to plastics in the United States in a study of 2024, and estimates of exposure to the DEHP, a particular phthalate.
Daily exposure to this phthalate, DEHP, “could be linked to more than 356,000 deaths due to heart disease in the world for the only year 2018”, including three quarters that occurred in the Middle East, South Asia and East and in the Pacific, estimates the study published on Tuesday.
This represents “more than 13% of world mortality due to heart disease in 2018 in men and women aged 55 to 64,” said its authors, stressing that residents of high income countries are less exposed.
Although the study does not look at the origins of exposure to DEHP, the highest levels are found in countries like India or China, which combine “a plastic industry, a low regulation of plastic products and large quantities of plastic waste”, whose management is underdeveloped “, note the researchers.
Links have been established “for decades” by studies between health problems and exposure to phthalates present “in cosmetics, detergents, solvents, plastic pipes, insecticides”, they recall.
Because “when these chemical substances decompose into microscopic particles and are ingested”, they have been associated with “an increased risk of pathologies ranging from obesity and diabetes to fertility and cancer problems”.
“By highlighting the link between phthalates and a major cause of death in the world, our results contribute to the vast set of evidence that these chemicals have a huge danger for human health,” said the main author of the study, Sara Hyman.
Global estimates must be made to shed light on negotiations for an international treaty against plastic pollution, according to these scientists. These negotiations have so far failed, after an unsuccessful meeting in December in Busan in South Korea, and a new session is scheduled from August 5 to 14 in Geneva.
