New Study: BPA May Make You Stupid and Depressed
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 09. 4.08
cute african green monkeys
Coincidentally with the release of the National Toxicology Program report, a new study reports that researchers from the Yale School of Medicine and Guelph University exposed African Green monkeys on the Island of St. Kitts to low levels of Bisphenol A for a month. They found that even low doses of BPA slow down the synapses in the brain.
"It dramatically impairs the formation of synapses in the regions of the brain important to learning," biomedical science professor Neil MacLusky [of the University of Guelph] said. "These findings are worrisome because BPA is one of the most widely-used chemicals in the world." ::CTV
According to Medical News Today, This synaptic loss may cause memory/learning impairments and depression, according to study results published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
More from Medical News Today:
"Our primate model indicates that BPA could negatively affect brain function in humans," said study co-author Tibor Hajszan, M.D., associate research scientist in Yale Ob/Gyn. "Based on these new findings, we think the EPA may wish to consider lowering its 'safe daily limit' for human BPA consumption."
Hajszan said that although daily exposure of an average person to BPA usually does not reach the level that was applied in this study, human exposure to BPA is not limited to a single month, but rather is continuous over a lifetime. "The negative effect of BPA may also be amplified when estradiol levels are naturally lower than in healthy adults. That is why exposure to BPA may particularly be risky in the case of babies and the elderly."
Citation: PNAS Online Early Edition, 10.1073/pnas.0806139105 (September 2, 2008)
Csaba Leranth, M.D. http://www.med.yale.edu/obgyn/research/researchlabs.html
Read also: Final Report on Bisphenol A: It May Harm Kids
More on BPA in TreeHugger:
FDA Says BPA Is Safe For Babies
Bisphenol A: How Wal-Mart Became the New FDA
Quotes of the Day: Opinions on the FDA Declaring BPA Safe
Don't Buy A Nalgene Water Bottle Until You Read This
BPA Danger may be greater from Tin Cans than Water Bottles
Nalgene Dumps Bisphenol A Like Hot Potato :
Bisphenol A Is In Your Tomato Sauce
Bisphenol A Could Be In Your Teeth
Polycarbonate Water bottles
Canada Calls Bisphenol A "Dangerous"
Time to Pack In the Polycarbonates
Bottled Water - Lifting the Lid :
MEC Nixes Nalgenes
Health effects:
Hot Water + Polycarbonate Bottles = More Gender-Benders
Gender Bender Chemicals Also Make You Fat
Alternatives:
A Safer Sippy for Your Little Green Angels
Stefani Water Purifiers: an Alternative to Plastic
Kor One: Reinventing the Water Bottle
Are Sigg Aluminum Bottles BPA Free?
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
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- BPA Update: How Science Works at the FDA
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C'mon guys, enough already with the fearmongering. How many times do you have to be told... read the paper first, then interpret it based on the actual evidence. Let's look at this paper in detail...
First you remove a female monkey's ovaries. Then you give the monkey estrogen and some neuronal changes occur. If you implant a pump delivering BPA, those estrogen-induced changes are inhibited. So, extrapolating this to humans, BPA might be damaging to neuronal function in post-menopausal women on hormone-replacement-therapy.
No mention of the effect on baseline neuronal function. No mention that the dose (50 micrograms/kg/day) was delivered by direct injection to the blood, but the EPA recommended dose is ORAL (ever hear of something called bioavailability?) No mention that the EPA safe dose (50 micrograms/kg/day) is waaaaay higher than any levels that have actually been measured in humans - the NTP report cites average exposures as 0.05 micrograms, and never more than 0.25.
Oh, and to top it all off... they used a grand total of 12 (actually 11) monkeys spread across 4 experimental groups. i.e., 3 monkeys per group! Hardly great statistics, since most animal studies require N = 10-12 to attain any kind of meaningful numbers. Add in that the monkeys were "trapped / bred", introducing another significant variable, and it is very surprising this study got into PNAS.
well that just ruined my day.
that`s totally not surprising since harmful chemicals come with the consumer way of living we are all part of. Nowadays we have to saddly face the fact that a complex combination of chemicals "lives" inside every human being`s body (not to mention every living organism on earth!) no matter sex, religion, nationality, environmentalist or not .Even unborn babies are already contaminated in some way.
Of course that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight it. But its like suffering from a deadly disease , you just have to know ,not fear that u r gonna die.
It's been suspected of causing health issues since 1930.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A