{"id":713,"date":"2024-11-04T02:30:50","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T02:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/?p=713"},"modified":"2025-11-20T18:32:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T18:32:01","slug":"are-your-groceries-harming-your-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/are-your-groceries-harming-your-pregnancy\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Your Groceries Harming Your Pregnancy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-714\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1130\/2025\/11\/Very-Pregnant-Woman-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1130\/2025\/11\/Very-Pregnant-Woman-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1130\/2025\/11\/Very-Pregnant-Woman-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1130\/2025\/11\/Very-Pregnant-Woman-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1130\/2025\/11\/Very-Pregnant-Woman-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1130\/2025\/11\/Very-Pregnant-Woman.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Nearly all pregnant women may be exposed to the estrogen-mimicking toxin ZEN, which is prevalent in food and potentially increasing with climate change. Higher exposure levels correlate with certain diets and lifestyles, prompting calls for both dietary caution and food regulation.<\/p>\n<p>A study published in the <em>Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology<\/em> found that nearly all pregnant women are exposed to the fungal toxin zearalenone (ZEN), which acts like estrogen in the body and can disrupt reproduction in certain animals.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers from Rutgers and the University of Rochester detected ZEN or its metabolites in 97 percent of urine samples from pregnant women and 84 percent of placentas.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Read more here: https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/are-your-groceries-harming-your-pregnancy-alarming-mold-toxins-found-in-popular-everyday-foods\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly all pregnant women may be exposed to the estrogen-mimicking toxin ZEN, which is prevalent in food and potentially increasing with climate change. Higher exposure levels correlate with certain diets &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/are-your-groceries-harming-your-pregnancy\/\" class=\"\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2925,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are Your Groceries Harming Your Pregnancy? - Aleksunes Lab<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/are-your-groceries-harming-your-pregnancy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are Your Groceries Harming Your Pregnancy? - Aleksunes Lab\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nearly all pregnant women may be exposed to the estrogen-mimicking toxin ZEN, which is prevalent in food and potentially increasing with climate change. Higher exposure levels correlate with certain diets &hellip; Read More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/are-your-groceries-harming-your-pregnancy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Aleksunes Lab\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-11-04T02:30:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-20T18:32:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/aleksunes-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1130\/2025\/11\/Very-Pregnant-Woman-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lauren M. Aleksunes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lauren M. 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