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Chemical pollutants: An invisible cause of obesity?

World Obesity Federation | 25 Jun 2024

Persistent chemicals in the environment may be adding to the obesity epidemic and, says Dr Tim Lobstein, are another reason why individuals should not be blamed for weight gain.
 
In 2002 a paper in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine suggested that the obesity epidemic that had emerged in the preceding two decades in developed economies may be linked to exposure to environmental toxins. Since then the credibility of this suggestion has grown, with around 50 research papers published up to 2010, and some 700 now.