Three new studies link the common chemical BPA to numerous conditions, including obesity, prostate cancer, and undescended testicles.
Experts are finding that exposure to bisphenol A (BPA)—an additive used in numerous products, but most commonly found in plastic water bottles, cash register receipts, and soup can liners—may be affecting human health more than we know.
Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said BPA was safe for people of all ages, yet banned the use of the chemical in sippy cups, baby bottles, and other containers used by children.
Prior research on BPA, which acts like synthetic estrogen in the body, has been linked to miscarriages and birth defects in primates, as well as to behavioral problems in girls, impotence in men, an increased risk of heart disease, and other health problems.
Three studies that link BPA to even more health problems, including birth defects and cancer in animal testing, were presented during The Endocrine Society’s annual meeting this week in San Francisco.
Early exposure to BPA increases a person’s risk of developing prostate cancer, according to research by Gail Prins, a professor of physiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Prins tested daily levels of BPA exposure in animal models and found that BPA’s estrogen effect “reprograms” prostate stem and progenitor cells.
Prins arrived at her conclusion by implanting prostate stem cells from dead male organ donors into mice. The cells formed human prostate tissue, and Prins fed the mice doses of BPA similar to those found in previous studies of pregnant American women. After one month, signs of cancer developed in a third of the mice fed BPA, nearly three times the rate of cancer in the mice not given BPA.
“This is the first direct evidence that exposure to BPA during development, at the levels we see in our day-to-day environment, increases the risk for prostate cancer in human prostate tissue,” Prins said in a press release accompanying the research.
Source: Health News
No comments:
Post a Comment