More BPA News
By Jenn (TinyChoices.com) | September 18, 2008
Hey ya’ll, here’s an update on the FDA vs. BPA front:
A quick primer: BPA (Bisphenol-A) is a chemical found in hard polycarbonate plastic bottles (such as Nalgene and Lexan brands) along with baby bottles and other plastic items, and is also used in the defacto epoxy liner inside almost all canned food. Never noticed the baked-on liner in your cans before? Look again. Problem is, BPA is also starting to be widely recognized as a health risk, as a hormone disruptor as well as being associated with other serious diseases. Back in April, progressive Canada officially listed BPA as a toxic substance and banned its use in baby bottles.
To recap: The last update was that, despite contradictory findings by many past studies, the FDA basically gave the plastic-hardening chemical BPA a free pass: “Scientists at the Food and Drug Administration said the trace amounts of bisphenol A that leach out of food containers were not a threat to infants or adults.”
And now: The Journal of the Medical Association has published a study titled “Association of Urinary Bisphenol A Concentration With Medical Disorders and Laboratory Abnormalities in Adults” in which they found that a higher concentration of BPA in urine was associated with higher instances of cardiovascular disease and/or diabetes. This study is the largest one yet using human subjects; the FDA relied on industry-funded studies incorporating lab animals.
From the NY Times: “The new study, released Tuesday by The Journal of the American Medical Association, was based on a survey of nearly 1,500 adults. It found that those with higher levels of BPA in their urine were also more likely to report that they also had heart disease or diabetes. But the investigators wrote that their approach “may have resulted in false-positive associations” and urge that the study be independently replicated.”
From Reuters: “Using government health data, they found that the 25 percent of people with the highest levels of bisphenol A in their bodies were more than twice as likely to have heart disease and, or diabetes compared to the 25 percent of with the lowest levels. “Most of these findings are in keeping with what has been found in animal models,” Iain Lang, a researcher at the University of Exeter in Britain who worked on the study, told a news conference.”
It seems like everyone agrees that further research needs to be conducted for conclusive results, but this preliminary study points directly towards proving BPA to be a health concern. According to Grist, 2 billion pounds of BPA are used each year to make hard plastics (though that’s a presumably outdated 2003 figure), which kind of means this stuff is everywhere and in everything.
If you’re concerned about BPA in your life, you can limit your exposure by avoiding hard clear plastics and canned foods. At the same time, realize that we all already have large amounts of the stuff in our tissues, and there’s not much we can do about that… but in my opinion, it seems prudent to do what we can to not increase the load.
Related Posts:
- FDA Says BPA A-OK
- Down With BPA
- Water Bottles: How Necessary Are They?
- Mason Jars & Further Water Bottle Insanity
- Water Bottles, Again…
- Mountain Equipment Coop Stops Selling Bisphenol-A
- Reusable Water Bottle Options
[Image by NIOSH via Creative Commons]
{Thanks to Amy & Karina for the links!}
Topics: Health | 6 Comments »
good gawd- this is so messed up.
It really makes me want to move back out into the boonies where I had clean well water and didn’t have to worry about the chlorine in city water and the toxins in bottles.
Can I come?
do we ever get rid of the levels in our bodies? is it there for good??
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