Bisphenol A, synaptic remodeling, food packaging

[Guest guest]

BPA, just another factor:

Bisphenol A interferes with synaptic remodeling.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20609373>

Hajszan T, Leranth C.

Front Neuroendocrinol. 2010 Oct;31(4):519-30.

Food packaging and bisphenol A and bis(2-ethyhexyl) phthalate exposure:

findings from a dietary intervention.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21450549>

Rudel RA, Gray JM, Engel CL, Rawsthorne TW, Dodson RE, Ackerman JM,

Rizzo J, Nudelman JL, Brody JG.

Environ Health Perspect. 2011 Jul;119(7):914-20.

....We selected 20 participants in five families based on self-reported

use of canned and packaged foods. Participants ate their usual diet,

followed by 3 days of " fresh foods " that were not canned or packaged in

plastic, and then returned to their usual diet. We collected evening

urine samples over 8 days in January 2010 and composited them into

preintervention, during intervention, and postintervention samples...

Urine levels of BPA and DEHP metabolites decreased significantly during

the fresh foods intervention...

- - - -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trace-chemicals-in-everyda\

y-food-packaging-cause-worry-over-cumulative-threat/2012/04/16/gIQAUILvMT_story.\

html

aka

http://tinyurl.com/896x4bk

In a study

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3223004/?tool=pubmed>

published last year in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives,

researchers put five San Francisco families on a three-day diet of food

that hadn't been in contact with plastic. When they compared urine

samples before and after the diet, the scientists were stunned to see

what a difference a few days could make: The participants' levels of

bisphenol A (BPA), which is used to harden polycarbonate plastic,

plunged --- by two-thirds, on average --- while those of the phthalate

DEHP, which imparts flexibility to plastics, dropped by more than half.

The findings seemed to confirm what many experts suspected: Plastic food

packaging is a major source of these potentially harmful chemicals,

which most Americans harbor in their bodies. Other studies have shown

phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates) passing into food from processing

equipment and food-prep gloves, gaskets and seals on non-plastic

containers, inks used on labels --- which can permeate packaging --- and

even the plastic film used in agriculture....

- - - -

April 20, 2012 by Civil Eats

<http://civileats.com/2012/04/17/our-chemical-cocktail-evaluated-in-new-report/>

Our Chemical Cocktail Evaluated in New Report

by a Crossfield

When it comes to the chemicals used in food packaging, there is much we

still don't know. After a recent U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA)

decision last month to not put further restrictions on bisphenol-A

(BPA), a new report

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trace-chemicals-in-everyd\

ay-food-packaging-cause-worry-over-cumulative-threat/2012/04/16/gIQAUILvMT_story\

..html>

today in the /Washington Post/ takes a closer look at studies that

reveal that such endocrine-distrupting chemicals are not only

ubiquitous, they might also be harmful at much lower doses than

previously thought.

The FDA allows around 3,000 chemicals, including BPA and phthalates--a

family of chemicals used in lubricants and solvents and to make

polyvinyl chloride pliable--at low doses, long considering them

additives though they migrate from the packaging instead of being

purposefully added by the food manufacturer. But these chemicals are

notoriously hard to trace, and have not been studied for their

cumulative effects.

" Finding out which chemicals might have seeped into your groceries is

nearly impossible, given the limited information collected and disclosed

by regulators, the scientific challenges of this research and the

secrecy of the food and packaging industries, which view their

components as proprietary information, " writes Freinkel, author of

Plastic: A Toxic Love Story....

[more]

Civil Eats

<http://civileats.com/2012/04/17/our-chemical-cocktail-evaluated-in-new-report/>