任何的医生和营养学家可能都同意这样一种说法，解决肥胖危机的最好方法就是健康的饮食，加上平时坚持锻炼身体。不过据一项最新的研究，导致肥胖的发生可能还有其他的因素。
这项最近的研究显示，在美容产品中所广泛使用的某些化学物质可能会导致人体体重的增加。
位于纽约的西奈山医学中心的医生们表示，在百分之七十的洗发香波中都添加了一种名叫邻苯二甲酸盐的华轩元素，它还存在于化妆品和肥皂之中，这种物质“可能会干扰人体内分泌”，大家应该尽量避免使用这样的产品。
这项研究呼应了之前的发现，化学物质会伤及人体的神经系统，影响到控制体重的系统。研究者们发现，这种干扰正常内分泌的物质的作用类似于荷尔蒙对于人体的效果，影响其腺体所产生的机能。西奈山医学中心的医生还警告到，一种名为双酚A的物质普遍的出现在许多的食物容器之内，其中包括了塑料水瓶和婴儿的奶瓶(表面印有数字7)。
参与这项研究的儿科医生Maida Galvez在研究了330名生活在东哈林区的儿童的健康情况后，表示小组的数据显示了这些干扰内分泌的物质与受测者体重的增加有关。如果科学家能够准确的了解这些物质是如何影响到人体的生长发育的话，他们便能找到避免这一情况发生的重要阶段。她说：“即便这些化学元素在人体发胖的过正中扮演的角色有限，但却是可以避免发生的。”
为了避免邻苯二甲酸盐对于身体的影响，消费者应该尽量选择不含香料的产品，最好使用有机的产品。
西奈山医学一项从2002年启动的计划研究了肥胖者在日常生活中所使用的化学物质。苏格兰斯特灵大写的研究者们将双酚A和邻苯二甲酸盐成为“化学卡路里”。
主导研究的Paula Baillie-Hamilton说：“在关于肥胖的争论中我们常常忽视一点，在过去的几十年中，地球的欢迎已经发生了巨大的变化，造成这一现象的因素是由于有机和无机的化学品的使用明显的增加了。
不过哥本哈根预防医学研究所的Jeanett Tang-Peronard发表文章指出，探寻化学物质对于体重影响的研究还处于早期阶段。她写到：“影响内分泌的物质可能会导致体重增加，对此我们的认识还处于表面层次。”
生物探索推荐英文原文：
Your shampoo could be making you fat
Eating healthy and exercising regularly are good enough for sloughing off the pounds. But what if your body acts otherwise? Doctors have found that chemical compounds in cosmetics disrupt the body's natural weight control system.
Emerging evidence suggests that a more sinister reason than food and activity could be behind obesity. They are the so-called 'chemical calories' lurking in beauty products, including innocuous looking shampoo, body lotions and soap.
Doctors at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York claim that phthalates, chemical ingredients in 70 percent of cosmetics and household cleaning products, have been shown to disrupt the body's natural weight control system.
Exposure to phthalates through daily use may be linked to childhood obesity and weight problems in adults, the scientists warned, reports the Daily Mail.
In their long-term study on girls living in the inner city area of East Harlem, New York, Mount Sinai team measured exposure to phthalates by analysing the children's urine.
"The heaviest girls have the highest levels of phthalates in their urine," says Prof Philip Landrigan, paediatrician and study author from Mount Sinai. "It goes up as the children get heavier, but it's most evident in the heaviest kids."
Phthalates have been widely used as gelling agents in cosmetics, cleaning products and to make plastic bottles for more than half a century, but it has only just come to light that there may be possible health risks.
Another substance, Bisphenol-A (BPA), also present in containers and bottles, has also been found to be rich in 'chemical calories.'
Billed as 'endocrine disruptors,' they are absorbed into the body affecting the glands and hormones that regulate numerous bodily functions.
It's not just girls who seem susceptible to the phthalate effect. In 2007, researchers at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, US, found the same class of chemicals were contributing to abdominal obesity and insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes, in men.
Rochester scientists analysed the urine, blood samples and other data of 1,451 men. They found that those with the highest level of phthalates in their urine had more belly fat and insulin resistance.
They suggested that depressed testosterone levels due to chemicals was the underlying cause of their weight gain.
