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New Study Links Plastics To Heart Disease, Diabetes
fprintf writes "There have been a number of studies over the years, some of which have been debunked, linking plastics with human disease. Now British researchers have released a study again linking common plastics used in food/liquid storage with human disease."
As usual from press reporting of scientific studies it's really hard to tell what to make of the conclusion. The article mentions animal studies that indicate BPA (the plastic) may disrupt hormones (especially estrogen).
The article suggests this is a preliminary study that only measured the correlation (so, yes it appears the assumption was correct) between BPA levels and heart disease and diabetes. It doesn't talking about removing the effect of diet, which is well-known to affect both of these diseases. If that effect is not accounted for in the study, it may well turn out that people who eat lots of meals from BPA containers (or have bad teeth and have fillings with BPA) tend to have less healthy diets as well.
And people wonder why girls are hitting puberty so much earlier now.
That is because children have much better nutrition than there used to be. As a result, they are able to reach puberty sooner because of better health.
This is why you should only use human bones as your utensils. There is no danger!(well, Kuru but....)
Plus, nothing makes for great conversation around the coffee maker at the office quite like a human skull fashioned into a mug.
Monstar L
Maybe its not the plastic, but rather the junk food inside the plastic?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Snopes is good at debunking (urban) myths.
Not really. They suck at accepting corrections. For example, there's an article on whether Marilyn Monroe had six toes. Now, I have no reason to believe that they reached the wrong conclusion, but I know for a fact that at least one of their reasons is fundamentally wrong:
My wife is a podiatrist, and I asked her if that was correct. She said that no, it's an urban legend of its own, and that it takes little adjustment after a toe amputation once the surgical wound is healed. Even removal of the big toe is a relatively minor deal (try walking with it lifted off the ground sometime and see if it makes a difference), let alone a vestigial extra pinky toe hanging off the side.
I wrote to Snopes with that information from an expert source, and they wrote back that I was a dumbass for believing that Marilyn had six toes. I don't! I just didn't think they should be using invalid facts to "prove" their case, even if I agree with their conclusion.
Snopes is fine for entertainment value, but wholly worthless as an authoritative information source.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
But wait. What if it's not the junk food that's killing us? What if it's really been the containers all along.
OK. I'm going with this model, because I would much rather have junk food than platics.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
Yes, it was a topic carefully avoided by the scientists themselves. Just look at their tap dancing: "The researchers, who will also present their findings at the U.S. FDA session on Tuesday, added it was too early to identify a mechanism through which the chemical may be doing harm." and "The researchers also cautioned that these findings are just the first step and more work is needed to determine if the chemical actually is a direct cause of disease."
Actually, what got us into this bisphenol A mess was that polycarbonate laboratory bottles became popular among regular consumers- chemists who enjoyed outdoor pursuits started taking Nalgene bottles (which are light, stable over a wide range of conditions, and nearly shatterproof) out of the lab and into the woods.
While I am not the sort to get caught up in scares about chemicals , I will admit the bisphenol A thing is a concern. This is Bisphenol A, and this is diethylstilbestrol. A nonsteroidal estrogen agonist, DES was once prescribed to reduce the risk of miscarriages. Banned from that use in the early 1970s due to it increasing rates of cancers and birth defects, DES is currently causing rare birth defects and cancers in the grandchildren of the women it was originally given to. Endocrine disruptors can be extremely potent, with persistant harmful effects, and I think it a prudent course that such compounds be identified and their use minimized.
That being said, it's bewildering to see people panic over BPA and then see an explosion of products touting their levels of soy isoflavones. Everyone knows those are estrogens, right?
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
People who eat more prepackaged foods are more likely to be taking in all sorts of stuff---high fructose corn syrup, higher levels of sugar, higher levels of various preservatives [...]
It seems that no one bothers to actually read the articles before posting (save the "you must be new here", I'm being sarcastic).
You see, the study didn't test exposure to BPA. It only compared the likelihood of some diseases with the amount of BPA present in the body. That's an important detail.
In other words, this correlation may very well indicate causation... the other way around. Heart disease or diabetes may cause your body to retain more BPA. As simple as that.
Shooting off in random directions and making conjectures about the habits of people who come into contact with BPA is pointless (unless you're planning to back it up with data). For example, BPA is used in the packaging of several vegetables, so you can eat nothing but "health food" and still come into contact with BPA frequently. In fact the article points out that 90% of the people tested had some BPA in their body. Also, high-fuctose corn syrup is relatively rare outside the USA (extremely rare in Europe), and the study was (apparently) conducted in the UK.
In any case the study's authors are not claiming any causation, one way or the other, and they specifically say they did not identify any mechanism through which BPA would cause any illness.
Evidence that eating foods with more sweeteners leads to greater obesity, which in turn leads to diabetes? Do I really need to cite studies for something so commonly accepted? Okay, here's a good start:
http://news.healingwell.com/index.php?p=news1&id=521780
http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/941223597.html
http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/uvahealth/adult_diabetes/obover.cfm
I'm not saying that all type 2 diabetes is caused by obesity---it is well established that this is not the case---but it is well established that a fair percentage of people with type 2 diabetes became diabetic after gaining weight and that these people often cease to be diabetic after surgical intervention to forces weight loss. That's about as clear an establishment of causation as you can get.... The causative mechanism is even somewhat understood at this point.
Or did you mean the proof about the preservatives?
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Science-Nutrition/FDA-re-opens-probe-into-benzene-contamination-of-soft-drinks
Follow the links from there for loads of info on this subject.
It is fairly well established that sodium benzoate when combined with ascorbic acid (sorry, wrong acid in my previous post... my bad) releases benzene, which is a well known carcinogen.
Word to the wise: if you're buying soft drinks or fruit juices preserved with sodium benzoate, be sure to drink them immediately. Don't let them sit on the shelf of your home. What you don't know can kill you.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.