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in collaboration with
Dr Odile Bagot (Gynecologist-obstetrician)
After demonstrating the deleterious effects of Bisphenol A on teeth a few years ago, a French team showed that a phthalate, DEHP, could alter the mineralization of children’s teeth. This compound is widely present in flexible plastics, including medical equipment.
DEHP, a widely used phthalate
This is not the first time that INSERM has sought a link between an endocrine disruptor and an alteration of the dentition: in 2013, a study pinpointed bisphenol A or BPA. The environmental changes of recent decades have, in fact, regularly demonstrated their impact on the health and well-being of populations. But DEHP, a phthalate still commonly used in “food containers, consumer goods, toys, cosmetics and medical devices” is present enough to ask questions.
A team of researchers from Inserm, Paris Cité University and Sorbonne University, within the Cordeliers Research Center in Paris, in collaboration with the CNRS has therefore decided to look into this substance. And in particular, to assess its effect on the development of teeth.
Tooth alteration in just 12 weeks
The study carried out on mice consisted in exposing them daily to DEHP at low doses or at slightly higher doses, to reproduce the exposure of a child in his daily life or of a patient in a hospital. After 12 weeks of exposure, defects were noted on the incisors of the rodents: less mineralized, less hard, the teeth also presented an indisputably altered enamel.
Beyond the results that are not very reassuring for the population, especially the youngest, the study confirms that the teeth prove to be an effective marker of exposure to toxic substances, as suggested by the scientific literature. This type of study could therefore make it possible to test many other substances to ensure their effect in the future.
Does DEHP phthalate affect our children?
For Odile Bagot, doctor-gynecologist, but also author of “Endocrine disruptors: war is declared“(Mango, 2020), a study on the dental consequences of this phthalate, in mice, is interesting because it is quite innovative. It also has every chance of being extrapolated to humans.”especially when we know that today 15% of children are affected by hypomineralization of molars and incisors” she recalls.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to establish with precision the action of DEHP on the dental enamel of our children “already because between the impregnation and the consequences of an endocrine disruptor, it usually takes years. But above all because, unfortunately, we are all exposed, constantly, to multiple disruptors, be it bisphenol, mercury, etc. It is impossible to isolate the effect of just one of these disruptors. But let’s say that if we have an increase in this pathology in children and we have shown that there is an effect on the animal, and we know that this phthalate is in the environment of children…. However, this is a step forward in taking steps” she concludes.
For now, despite regulations and bans, DEHP is still present in many medical devices, especially in intensive care units and neonatology.