Benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a chemical commonly used in the food manufacturing process (not in food preparation, but it is used in the conveyor belts and plastic fittings on machines used to process many prepared foods), can increase fat stores in the body even before we’re born, according to a new study. The study, led by Mahua Choudhury, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, used animal stem cells to identify changes to the epigenome of the stem cell line when exposed to the chemical BBP when compared to a control. The cell lines exposed to increasingly higher levels of BBP also showed higher levels of adipogenesis — the process by which fat cells develop — as much as five times higher, depending on the dose. http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/1194.html
