* The journal Reproductive Toxicology published a Harvard University study of 190 men that found correlation between BPA levels in men’s urine and damage to their sperm counts and DNA.
“Men with the highest levels of BPA had sperm concentrations 23 per cent lower than those with the least.
The results also suggested a 10 per cent increase in sperm DNA damage.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1300402/Gender-bending-chemical-food-tins-cut-male-fertility.html#ixzz0wj4otRNc

* Store receipts in many cases are loaded with BPA dust which rubs off onto your fingers. The Environmental Working Group tested receipts from a variety of stores and governmental units, and found large amounts. Stores with particularly heavy loads of it included Safeway and Whole Foods Markets, not to mention the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. House of Representatives Cafeteria.
This is despite the fact that BPA-free thermal paper is now on the market, so these retailers don’t have to be exposing us to this.
http://www.ewg.org/bpa-in-store-receipts

Meanwhile, authors Stephen Perrine and Heather Hurlock coined the word “obesogenic” and suggested in a new book that the obesity trend is caused by chemicals like BPA in plastics.

And others, like me, sidestep the obesity question and point out that earlier puberty for females (and later for males) is a logical outcome for a BPA-rich environment. BPA, a synthetic estrogen, is used as an additive in clear plastic bottles, as liner for tin cans, and liberally covers credit card receipt thermal paper. It’s in the tissues of every one of us.

Dr. Frank Biro of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center led a team that published its results in the journal Pediatrics on Monday. The team measured breast development in 1,200 girls aged 7 and 8 in New York, Cincinnati, and San Francisco. They compared results with those of a similar study made in 1997. As previously, they found wide disparity based on race, but they found a troubling trend of earlier puberty for all races.

The study found that at age 7, about 10 percent of white girls and 23 percent of black girls had started developing breasts. This compares to 5 percent of white girls and 15 percent of black girls in 1997. Therefore the number of white girls developing at age 7 had doubled, and the number of black girls had gone up by 50 percent.

The researchers suggested that obesity, now an epidemic in America, makes girls more likely to enter puberty earlier. What’s the problem with earlier puberty? It causes depression and may lead to earlier sexual activity. In addition, it increases the individual’s exposure to estrogen and therefore her chance of coming down with breast cancer, said the researchers in the Reuters news article.

To counter the obesity trend and therefore the early puberty trend, families should eat together and eat more fruits and vegetables, said Biro.

However, critics suggest that the obesity trend could be caused by chemicals BPA and phtlalates, both plastics additives that mimic estrogen. Stephen Perrine and Heather Hurlock in their book The New American Diet have coined a new term, “obesogenic,” to describe these to chemicals, saying they cause obesity.

Whether they cause obesity is up for debate, according to The Wall Street Journal editorial (Are Plastics Making Us Fat?, 08/13/10, p. A15). But it certainly appears to me that BPA, created in a lab as a synthetic estrogen, is pretty likely to cause early puberty in girls–and late puberty in boys.

Sources: http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/nm/us_puberty_earlier

The Wall Street Journal, “Are Plastics Making Us Fat?”, 08/13/10, p. A15

Image credit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The suit was filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, according to an article from Greenwire published in the New York Times.  In it, the NRDC charged the FDA with failing to respond to its October, 2008, petition asking the agency to block use of the chemical in food packaging.

Until this spring, the FDA had maintained that use of BPA is safe. However, recently it adjusted its stance and called for more research on the question. The research is expected to take 18 to 24 months.  In the meantime, BPA continues to be used in food packaging, particularly hard clear plastic bottles used for water and soda, and in tin can liners. In addition, it’s liberally used in the thermo paper that we all handle as merchant receipts.  The synthetic estrogen is found in more than 90 percent of Americans’ bodies.

Meanwhile, New York State acted to ban BPA in products used by infants and toddlers over the weekend.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/06/29/29greenwire-enviro-group-sues-to-force-bpa-ban-in-food-pac-79679.html

Apparently one reason for it, indirectly of course, is the use of BPA, bisphenyl A, in our environment: in plastic water and soda bottles, in tin can liners, and on our credit card receipts, and other places probably.  Everyone has some levels of this contaminant in their urine. Now there’s proof that BPA, a synthetic estrogen, is adversely affecting male sexuality, according to a study by Kaiser Permanente, a health care provider in California.

Searching for a situation where some men are exposed to relatively high levels of BPA while others are not, the researchers chose to examine 427 factory workers in China. The study group worked in a factory producing BPA or epoxy resin; the control group worked in a different type of factory.  Up until now, BPA studies have been limited to animal studies.

Researchers took urine samples and explained that BPA is considered to be a hormone system disrupter. They asked plenty of very personal questions of these men.  They also asked questions about other factors that could influence male sexuality, including demographic characteristics, “smoking, alcohol use, chronic diseases, exposure to other chemical and heavy metals, and occupational history.” The study lasted five years.

Results? A correlation was definitely found. “Increasing urine BPA level is associated with decreased sexual desire, more difficulty having an erection, lower ejaculation strength and lower level of overall satisfaction with sex life, researchers said.”

Source: http://www.dor.kaiser.org/external/DORExternal/news/press_releases/press_release.aspx?id=5718&terms=bpa+male

March 10, the agency issued an action plan under the Toxic Substances Control Act involving:

• Adding BPA to the agency’s chemical Concern List.
• Ordering data collection on BPA in U.S. water supplies.
• Evaluating the reported disproportionate effect BPA has on children.
• Evaluating the effect on wildlife.
• Finding ways to reduce unnecessary BPA exposure and releases into the environment while further studies are being conducted.

I am happy to see this. Apparently 1 million pounds per year of BPA are released into the environment, and no one has been a watchdog for us. It’s about time.

Want to avoid BPA? Don’t eat canned food. Don’t touch credit card receipts. (I know, we have to touch them.)   And of course, don’t drink water or soda that has been stored in plastic bottles.

And where else are those one million pounds per year being used?  Somewhere else that impacts each of us, I bet!

Source: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/bd4379a92ceceeac8525735900400c27/78110048d7f696d1852576f50054241a!OpenDocument

The study, by Simon Fraser University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, was published Oct. 6.  In it, 249 pregnant women gave blood at invervals which was sampled for BPA.  The children were evaluated at age 2 for behavior issues.

Results showed that BPA-exposed girls were more likely to exhibit aggression and ADD, while boys to a lesser degree exhibited anxiety and depression.

The children will be evaluated as they grow older to measure the continued effect of the intra-uterine exposure.

Source: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/2944/1/

Where does it come from?

The contamination “is thought to be the result of large amounts of plastic garbage that has been dumped into the sea. Although plastic is non-biodegradable, the chemical BPA will still migrate from this ‘plastic pollution’ into the surrounding waters. Another theory suggests, that Bisphenol A may also be leaching into seawaters from the epoxy resins on ships.”

This is alarming, if you ask me.  Let’s avoid bottled water, a prime source of BPA, and keep pestering the FDA to ban it.

Source: http://www.bpaplastic.com/plastic-pollution-in-the-ocean

Vicky Heath, editor of Nature’s Endocrinology Review, responded. Perhaps it’s not spam, she said. We need to be aware of the danger. She is calling for the plastics industry to act much more responsibly than it has.

In an editorial dated May, 2010, Health reviewed the dangers of BPA, a synthetic estrogen found in plastic bottles and tin can liners. “BPA and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals have been implicated in obesity, neurological deficits, reproductive dysfunction and cancer. In addition, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)—common household chemicals found in ‘nonstick’ and waterproof materials—have recently been linked to thyroid disease.”  She also said:

“BPA is just the tip of the iceberg. The plastics industry has a responsibility to ensure that its products are safe; companies should, therefore, be mandated to fund independent epidemiological and mechanistic research into the potential risks that industrial chemicals pose to the endocrine system. Furthermore, the FDA and its international counterparts should prioritize such research; at a global level, even a small risk could have a considerable impact on the health of millions of people.”

Meanwhile, the FDA is making us wait another 1 1/2 to 2 years for more research on this question, although there is plenty of research already showing that BPA is dangerous for all of us, but especially to infants and pregnant women. Be sure to protect your family by using a home water filtration system instead of bottled water.

“Plastic containers have a code printed on them– a number from 1 to 7– and a classification of the plastic itself. In this case we’re on the lookout for #3s and #7s with the letters PVC and PC (respectively) underneath.”  This probably includes the large bottle of water supplying water for your office, and probably also the smaller bottles being used for bottled water and soda, I might add. (The Nalgene people and their competitors have pretty much cleaned up their acts, for newer bottles.)

Of course, the next thing to worry about is that BPA is in canned food cans, as a liner. So try to avoid eating food from cans–buy food held in  glass containers, when possible.

“The bad news is, unlike take-out containers and sports bottles, there’s no way to know if your pre-packaged food is being infused with synthetic estrogen. And though the FDA has finally admitted that BPA isn’t a tasty, healthy additive (or whatever the hell they used to think), and may actually be a danger, there are no plans as of yet to ban the chemical or require manufacturers to disclose its use.

“The water cooler is easy. Here goes… DRINK TAP WATER.”

The author then recommends that you get a filter, just like the filtered tap water you used to buy in plastic bottles.  He comments that the water filter doesn’t remove BPA.

I’d like to point out that there’s no BPA to remove, if the water hasn’t been in a BPA-containing bottle.

Consider getting a Multi-Pure home water filter, the best product out there with a proven record and golden guarantees, costing you just 8 cents per gallon. And take a look at the EcoMatters Daily article here: http://ecomattersdaily.com/2010/02/bisphenol-a-its-the-new-asbestos-and-its-everywhere/