The toxic chemicals your toddler is regularly exposed to
The study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, detected 96 chemicals in five children, testing for 111 substances including plastic-fortifying phthalates, pesticides, and parabens.
Many of these chemicals are known or suspected to interfere with hormones, brain development, and immune function, with some linked to cancer.
The analysis revealed that 34 chemicals were present in over 90 percent of the children, with higher levels observed in two-year-olds and racial and ethnic minority groups.
Researchers emphasize the urgent need for expanded biomonitoring and stronger regulations to protect children, advising parents to limit exposure through safer products and improved hygiene.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
11 minutes ago
- The Independent
Tech execs are paying top dollar to breed smarter babies, report claims
Top Silicon Valley tech executives are forking out thousands of dollars in a bid to breed America's smartest babies, a new report claims. Parents and 'tech futurists' are paying up to $50,000 for a new genetic-testing service that promises to screen embryos for IQ, according to the Wall Street Journal. Jennifer Donnelly, who charges up to $500,000 for her services as a high-end matchmaker told the Journal she has seen a notable rise in the amount of tech execs who are looking to pair up with intelligent partners to subsequently get 'smart offspring.' 'Right now I have one, two, three tech CEOs and all of them prefer Ivy League,' Donnelly said. Startups including Nucleus Genomics and Herasight have started to publicly offer IQ predictions, based on genetic tests, to help people select which embryos to use for in vitro fertilization, The Journal reports. In the Bay Area, popularity for the exclusive services is high, with testing priced around $6,000 at Nucleus and up to $50,000 at Herasight. Last month, Elon Musk expressed his apparent enthusiasm in the idea when he responded 'Cool' to a post about Herasight. Polygenic embryo screening – PES – is a service that is only currently available commercially, and tests embryos for complex conditions, traits, and risks attributed to common conditions, such as diabetes, cancers and psychiatric disorders, among others, as well as for traits like height and intelligence quotient (IQ), according to the National Institutes of Health. Critics have raised questions about the ethics of such testing. Potential issues include the oversight over which conditions are tested, who chooses them, what level of uncertainty in the results is acceptable and whether the service only be used by those who can afford it. 'Is it fair? This is something a lot of people worry about,' said Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University to The Journal. 'It is a great science fiction plot: The rich people create a genetically super caste that takes over and the rest of us are proles.' And Sasha Gusev, a statistical geneticist at Harvard Medical School, added: 'I think they have a perception that they are smart and they are accomplished, and they deserve to be where they are because they have 'good genes. 'Now they have a tool where they think that they can do the same thing in their kids as well, right?'
The Sun
12 minutes ago
- The Sun
Tennis legend Monica Seles, 51, diagnosed with rare muscle-weakening condition as she bravely opens up
TENNIS great Monica Seles revealed she has been diagnosed with a rare muscle-weakening condition. Seles, 51, started experiencing double vision and extremely depleted strength in her arms and legs in 2019. 2 A long string of tests and scans - delayed by the Covid pandemic - ruled out brain tumours and motor neurone disease. The nine-time Grand Slam champion was eventually diagnosed with myasthenia gravis (MG) in 2022. Now Seles has gone public on neuromuscular autoimmune disease - which currently has no cure - and will raise awareness for the condition with an event around this month's US Open. MG affects most of the body but particularly the muscles that control the eyes - although symptoms can vary from day to day. Approximately 15-20 people per 100,000 - or 0.015 per cent of the population - are affected by MG, which sees the immune system attack the neuromuscular junction where nerves and muscles communicate. Seles told AP: "I would be playing [ tennis ] with some kids or family members, and I would miss a ball. "I was like, 'Yeah, I see two balls.' "These are obviously symptoms that you can't ignore. "It took me quite some time to really absorb it, speak openly about it, because it's a difficult one. "It affects my day-to-day life quite a lot." BBC presenter taken to hospital after 'real wake up call' working at Wimbledon and putting off medical care Seles won seven of her nine Grand Slams by the age of 18. That included reaching eight Major finals in a row - winning seven - before she was tragically stabbed in April 1993 on court during a match in Hamburg by a fixated fan of Steffi Graf. The Yugoslavia-born star - who switched nationality to USA - returned in 1995 after a two-year absence. She reached the US Open final in her first Major since the stabbing then won the 1996 Australian Open, her ninth and final Grand Slam title. The lefty, who played with a double-handed forehand and backhand, officialy retired in 2008 five years after her final competitive match. Now living in Florida, she told The Athletic about her MG diagnosis: 'I thought, 'OK, just push through it.' "But a couple of instances happened when — on court and in daily life — I realised there was something going on. What is myasthenia gravis? MYASTHENIA GRAVIS is a rare long-term condition that causes muscle weakness. It typically has phases when it improves and phases when it gets worse. MG usually affects most of the body, spreading from the eyes and face to other areas over weeks, months or years. But for some people with myasthenia gravis, only the eyes are affected. It is common for people to have "flare-ups", where symptoms are very troublesome, followed by periods of remission, where symptoms improve. It's an autoimmune condition, which means it's the result of the immune system (the body's natural defence against infection) mistakenly attacking a healthy part of the body. In myasthenia gravis, the immune system damages the communication system between the nerves and muscles, making the muscles weak and easily tired. It can affect people of any age, typically starting in women under 40 and men over 60. Common symptoms of myasthenia gravis include: droopy eyelids double vision difficulty making facial expressions problems chewing and difficulty swallowing slurred speech weak arms, legs or neck shortness of breath and occasionally serious breathing difficulties The symptoms tend to get worse when you're tired. Many people find they're worse towards the end of the day, and better the next morning after getting some sleep. Source: NHS "After coming out of my former country to the IMG Academy, I had to totally reset. "When I became No1, it was a huge reset because everybody treats you differently. "Then obviously when I got stabbed, that was a huge reset. And then when I was diagnosed, it was a huge reset. "The day-to-day part of managing it, depending on my symptoms, is really adjusting, you know. I think anybody else who has Myasthenia Gravis knows it's a continuous adjustment. "After my stabbing, I had to deal with that internally for quite a few years to process it and my MG diagnosis was kind of very similar. "I had to understand my new normal of day-to-day life, what I can do work-wise and different things."
Reuters
12 minutes ago
- Reuters
Focus: To stay on weight-loss drugs, US patients cut doses and maybe vacations
Aug 13 (Reuters) - Doctors advise most patients on GLP-1 obesity drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound to stay on them to keep the weight off, but as more U.S. insurers restrict coverage people are trimming costs by stretching doses or forgoing expenditures like vacations to pay for the medication out of pocket. A half dozen doctors who spoke with Reuters said insurance coverage has tightened in 2025 as many employers drop it for the expensive GLP-1 drugs. While patients on these medications are counseled on proper diet and exercise, clinical trials show that people who stop taking these drugs are apt to regain weight, opens new tab. Novo Nordisk's ( opens new tab Wegovy and Eli Lilly's (LLY.N), opens new tab Zepbound are weekly injections with U.S. insurer list prices of more than $1,000 a month. For customers willing to pay cash, both drugmakers will ship directly for $499 a month if refills are purchased at fixed intervals. "A significant number of my patients now pay cash," said Dr. Nidhi Kansal, an obesity specialist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. "People find a way to scrounge up $6,000 a year, which sucks, because that's a vacation or two." More than a billion people worldwide are obese, according to the U.N. World Health Organization, which has said the GLP-1 drugs could help end the obesity pandemic. A tech industry job change for Yelena Kibasova, a 40-year-old who lives in the Minneapolis area, meant loss of coverage for her Zepbound prescription that helped her achieve and maintain a 150-pound (68-kg) weight loss. "My new company does not cover GLP-1s, so now I am in a kind of purgatory," Kibasova said. "I stopped doing my nails. I stopped doing my hair. Those things are not as important as me staying at a healthy weight." The doctors interviewed by Reuters said patients once leery about long-term obesity treatment are now more comfortable staying on a drug. The doctors said that conversations about temporary use happen only when a patient is trying to lose a certain amount of weight for issues such as fertility treatment or an organ transplant. These obesity specialists said they are hopeful that competition will help bring down prices as new weight-loss options emerge, including new oral drugs that may be available next year. Lilly last week announced trial results for its easier-to-manufacture pill, which was shown to cut patient weight by 12.4%, a few percentage points less than injected drugs. The company hopes to launch it in August 2026. Kenneth Custer, Lilly's head of cardiometabolic health, told Reuters the pill is being tested in several settings, including as a maintenance therapy. Custer declined to comment on how it might be priced. Dr. Anne Peters, an endocrinologist at Keck Medicine USC in Los Angeles, said it is important that patients who reach their weight-loss goal not stop a prescription "cold turkey," so the dose can be tapered down over several months. Peters said about a third of her patients are able to reduce their dose and maintain weight loss, while the rest need to stay on the medication. An analysis of U.S. pharmacy insurance claims found that nearly two-thirds of patients who started on Wegovy or Zepbound in 2024 were still on the medications a year later. Peters said she uses "every technique in the book" to secure insurance coverage for patients, but noted that a growing number of plans no longer pay for the treatments, and patients have to pay out-of-pocket. U.S. pharmacies supply self-injection pens pre-loaded with doses of Wegovy or Zepbound. Lilly's direct-to-consumer service also offers vials. "Some patients can stretch out the vials longer. Get 15 mg, and then give a 10 mg dose for instance," Dr. Peters said, noting that the drug's instructions advise that such an approach should not be taken. Doses of 5 mg, 10 mg and 15 mg are recommended for weight-loss maintenance. Patients also are turning to lower-cost compounded versions of the GLP-1 drugs, or are even mixing them at home with raw ingredients, both of which Peters and other doctors advise against due to safety concerns. Dr. Angela Fitch, former president of the Centennial, Colorado-based Obesity Medicine Association and chief medical officer at online primary care provider Knownwell, said nobody wants to be on a medication, but patients who respond to a GLP-1 drug "really don't want to go off of it when they recognize that it has such a value to them." Both Wegovy and Zepbound were first launched, under the brand names Ozempic and Mounjaro, as diabetes treatments. The class has been linked to a range of benefits, including improved heart health and less sleep apnea. Fitch said the most common reason for her patients to stop taking a GLP-1 drug is loss of insurance coverage. She said her experience is that about 10% of patients are able to reach a target weight and maintain it without further treatment. "We are in a dip where people are dropping coverage," Fitch said, adding that the direct-to-consumer options are an "upper-ish middle-class thing."
