Many people would like to lose a few pounds, mainly because it would be healthier. But this is not always true. Researchers now show that losing weight can be detrimental to health because it can literally poison the blood. This is due to so-called POPs (persistent organic pollutants).
What are POPs?
POPs are man-made, or non-natural, chemicals that enter the body through the food chain † They arise during the production process and can be found, for example, in pesticides. Once POPs in the body, they collect in fatty tissue † And there, as far as we know, they are not harmful.
But what happens if that fat tissue disappears through weight loss? Korean researcher Duk-Hee Lee concludes that the POPs are released and build up in the blood † Lee examined 1,100 adults whose weight had changed significantly over the past ten years and looked at the amount of POPs in the blood. The people who lost ten pounds or more had a lot of POPs in their blood. Those who gained 10 pounds or more had the lowest amounts of POPs in the blood †
Consequences and risks?
How many POPs are needed before they become a health risk form is unclear. For that reason, people who are overweight should not hesitate and just continue or start losing weight. Only when we know more about these POPs and the risks they entail, it can be determined to what extent losing weight is dangerous.
