Bisphenol A in the news

Dennis

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Many of you may have noticed an item in the news yesterday about health risks associated with Bisphenol A (or BPA) which is used in the manufacture of babies plastic feeding bottles. One thing that immediately struck me was the instant response from government safety experts that, based on their own research, there are no risks associated with BPA.

Now, call me an old cynic if you like, but I have been around long enough to start to worry when a government denial about something comes out so quickly. I am old enough to remember a certain minister practically force-feeding his daughter with beef burger to prove that BSE infected beef was perfectly safe to eat (based on “government health information”), despite the rest of the world warning us of the links between BSE and CJD. So I thought I would do a little digging of my own - and found some rather surprising results.

Firstly, throughout Europe and, until this week also the US, the “safe” level for human ingestion of BPA has been set at 50 µg/kg/day. Apparently there have been around 120 scientific papers about BPA produced since 1930 all of which show a variety of risks associated with bisphenol A. To mention just a few and the levels at which the risks become apparent:
0.025 µg/kg/day - permanent changes to genital tract and changes in breast tissue that predispose cells to hormones and carcinogens in later life
2 µg/kg/day - lower bodyweight, signs of early puberty
2.5 µg/kg/day - decline in testicular testosterone, breast cells predisposed to cancer
10 µg/kg/day - insulin resistance develops in 2 days, chronic hyperinsulinemia in 4 days
20 µg/kg/day - damage to eggs and chromosomes
30 µg/kg/day - reversal of normal sex differences in brain structure and behaviour
50 µg/kg/day - what the UK regards as “safe” !!

Secondly, while there have been all these papers showing that BPA is unsafe at various levels below 50 µg/kg/day, there is NO published research that shows 50 µg/kg/day as being a safe level, contrary to yesterday’s government statement. Unless of course what they really mean is that at 50 µg/kg/day there are no more risks because long before that level has been reached the damage has already been done!

Apart from the usual hypocrisy and downright lies that we come to expect from governments as normal these days, the thing that struck me was the link between BPA and insulin resistance. Could it be that we are sowing the seeds of diabetes in our children while they are babies?
 

sugarless sue

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Interesting,Dennis,In my day we used pyrex bottles,how long have plastic bottles been on the go.It would be interesting to calculate from then to see if there has ,indeed been a rise in the number of childhood or related diabetes,but, how could it be proved? They would just turn round and point to another ' factor' !