When I hear talking about forever chemicals, they are usually described as “chemicals are not affected by naturally occurring reactions, and that accumulate in the bodies of living beings”. By accumulating, they cause all sorts of health issues.
What I don’t understand is how they cause these health issues. If these chemicals do not participate in regular reactions, how do they cause issues?
I am not claiming that the research in the subject is wrong, I am missing the link between “these things don’t react with anything” and “these things still cause all sorts of health problems”.
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So a great example of this and something that my labmates studied during my doctoral degree was the development of AGEs (Advanced Glycation End Products).
These occur when sugars react with the amines present on amino acids (primarily lysine and arginine). This reaction is EXTREMELY slow, non-enzymatic and IRREVESIBLE. In summary, glucose/other sugar can exist in a linear form (although this is an extreme minority <0.0001%), this linear form can react with proteins and form a large milieu of covalent adducts/modifications.
As you age, these adducts build up in your eyes, collagen and other long-lived tissues and your body has no way of clearing them – as most of the methods for protein digestion require enzymes and these modifications are completely resistant to enzymatic degredation.
Thus, many people hypothesize that wrinkles forming in your skin is partially due to the cross linking of collagen by AGEs overtime and your bodies inability to build/rebuild it.
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