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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."
Corelation. Is. Not. Causation.
So, what, you're suggesting people who live lifestyles that cause heart disease are more likely to also use plastic containers for their food and drink? Or people with heart disease are more likely to use plastic containers? What other correllation are you proposing?
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Correlation.is.not.spelled.like.corelation
If you didn't RTFA, how do you know their results only evidenced correlation then?
Blerg.
I wonder if they will compare the instances of disease to those from food poisoning from earlier methods of food storage?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Exactly right. "Correlation is not causation" has become more like a reflexive meme around here rather than a thoughtful addition to the conversation.
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
Every week there will be a new study that reveals some common chemical in our daily lives, will be harmful or good for your health.
Often it will be both harmful and good on consecutive weeks.
Soon I'll be releasing my own study that shows excessive worrying about common foods causes diabetes, cancer and spontaneous combustion.
It's called a cheap grab for mod points.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
From TFA: "At least from this study, we cannot draw any conclusion that bisphenol A causes any health effect. As noted by the authors, further research will be needed to understand whether these statistical associations have any relevance at all for human health."
As noted by the authors. The authors, and the person TFA got a quote from, and TFA all make this concession, and you try to karma-whore by stating the obvious. Read. The. Fine. Article.
I agree. A perfectly sensible interpretation is "if you eat more unhealthy prepackaged food, that food comes in plastic containers".
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Actually the study was based on the number of rubber bullets fired at a persons chest. As the number increased, the probability of a heart attack also increased. The second part was based on the study of plastic heart valve installations. It was observed that the people who had these valves in their hearts were also likely to suffer from heart disease.
I haven't even rtfa but here goes
Corelation. Is. Not. Causation.
Translation: I don't like the conclusion so I'll make a baseless assumption and attack the article without any knowledge of it. Sounds like a severe case of cognitive dissonance to me.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Keep using BPA products. And people wonder why girls are hitting puberty so much earlier now.
Internet? (reference: any adult web site)
attention deficit disorder
Internet? (reference: online games)
and neurological systems
Internet? (reference: goatse)
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But we can be treated equal.
The article in question actually says that they don't claim causality - but that it should be looked at further.
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.
"Exactly right. "Correlation is not causation" has become more like a reflexive meme around here rather than a thoughtful addition to the conversation."
I don't see how you can say that, just because a lot of commenters tend to reflexively reply with that meme to articles about scientific studies linking one thing to another. There can be many reasons for this. Correlation does not necessarily equal cau... uh ... oh, I see your point.
Wow, did you even bother reading the article? Do you really even understand statistics? Yes, correlation is not causation, but that really doesn't add much to the conversation. Correlation is necessary but not sufficient for causation. You do realize that there is a whole branch of mathematics and analysis that tries to extract causal relationships, if they exist, from this data? Are you also aware that analysis like this is the only way we can discover certain relationships?(Well, the only feasible way anyway). Getting a bunch of statistically random people to sit in a lab and drink from either plastic or non-plastic cups for 50 years isn't really going to be possible.
If you have a genuine statistical beef with something, please actually explain it rather than smugly stating, "corelation(sic). Is. Not. Causation)
Either that or show me your PhD in statistics.
Monstar L
the food IN the plastic is causing the heart disease?
It's time to play the what-is-the-causation game again. Most obvious to me is that junk food, prepared food (microwave meals etc.), and soft drinks are sold in plastic containers, and these foodstuffs are generally associated with heart disease and diabetes one way or another. It'll be interesting to see what the more rigorous studies find, although I'm sure this fine pilot study will be presented as Unarguable Proof That Plastic Makes You Die And We're Not Changing Our Minds On This by the world media before the day is out.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
It has recently been revealed that a common thread has been found among all human ailments and syndromes.
Everyone that has been afflicted with a disease or syndrome has consumed large amounts of DHMO!
Don't malign plastic, you dirty hippies. They saved my life in WWII! Why, when I was a lad, we would have KILLED to have plastic food storage. You know what I hear when you say plastics are dangerous? "blah blah blah I hate America blah blah I hate progress blah blah blah." Real Americans can eat plastic like it was apple pie and not get sick.
The same goes double for global warming & the ozone layer. In fact, let's just stop funding research into things that may be bad for us. Only sissies care. All you are doing with your sissy studies is holding back progress and making people worry over nothing.
Admit it: you want us all to go back to living in caves. You hate the modern world and everything in it and you want to destroy it with your evil 'studies.' Elitist intellectual claptrap.
America stands for progress. Except we're not progressive, the damn hippies stole that word and turned it into something dirty. Either you love progress and you know that everything new is better, or you hate America and want everyone to live in caves.
If you hate plastics, you hate the whole human race!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It was based off a study that was done some time ago. One of the findings was that for females, once they go past a certain weight (I don't remember what it was, and I don't feel like looking this up) they hit puberty. The CNN article you mention mentions obesity possibly being a factor for the early puberty. I think it must be referencing that study.
Straight from their own front page:
Never said he did. I was merely pointing out a similarity between Natural News and Kevin Trudeau both claiming that "natural" remedies are more effective than man-made medicines (which are also natural).
Just a few. Like this one, this one and this one. So yes, I have proof he is providing miracle cures. That and his infomercials on which he peddles his book which has in its title, "Includes The Natural Cures For Over 50 Specific Diseases".
I never said I didn't like the source. Some "natural" items can be very beneficial to certain people. However, claiming that ONLY "natural" products, such as supplements which are unregulated and don't have to detail what they actually contain or what effect they may have on people, is disingenuous and potentially harmful.
As far as proving them wrong, I don't need to prove them wrong because studies over the years have proven them wrong. Here is one article which discusses "natural" remedies, and this one which talks about Lycopene.
So yes, I was very intelligent to point out the bias of Natural News so people are aware of their bias. Whether people heed the warning is up to them but they have been warned.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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?
"some of which have been debunked"
Snopes is good at debunking (urban) myths. They are not, however, good at evaluating science. Debunking is not even an appropriate term or activity to apply to science (as stated by the poster, and as performed by Snopes). Their FAQ lists other forms of common fiction which are not urban myth, but fail to list badly researched statements by or about science among them.
Snopes reports the "debunking" coming from the International Bottled Water Association. Nobody conversant with science would accept a statement from such as biased source as authoritative. Their major hint should have come from the statement that the master's thesis was "not peer reviewed". A thesis is conducted by a student under a committee of professionals, at least one of which (the thesis supervisor) is an expert in that field. Peer review is conducted by the committee. A thesis is intended to be material suitable for rewriting into a publishable paper. It will have the committee members' names on it, in reference if not in the by-line. As professionals they will at least see to it that the result is worthy of carrying their names.
As for the quote in Snopes supposedly from Rolf Halden of Johns Hopkins that there are no dioxins in plastic, do your own research, as Snopes should have done to follow up, and as the Johns Hopkins people should have done before making the statement. Go to: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez and put in the search terms "plastic" and "dioxin".
Snopes should also have done their research on the link they provide to the Johns Hopkins PR release (not a scientific publication of any sort, and certainly not peer reviewed) making the "hoax" claim. It is not from Halden, it is from Kellog Schwab. In addition to misattribution, they fail to note that the statement is made in the context of J.H. distancing themselves from misattribution in the emails titled "John Hopkins Cancer Update" and such, not in the context of research conducted or reviewed. There is a similar J.H. missive listed among the 150 results from PubMed. It is in a J.H. publication (peer review?) and has no authors credited.
Snopes appears to have found a way to become a subject of their own scrutiny, as they have delved into science and come up as debunkable urban science myth. Stick to urban mythology, Sponesites. Science can and does take care of itself, if you dig for it in science rather than press releases. Evaluating science requires taking the specific hypothetical statements and applying scientific expertise, not merely quoting vested interests (!) who happen to disagree for reasons other than replicable evidence.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
From TFA
"At least from this study, we cannot draw any conclusion that bisphenol A causes any health effect. "
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."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There is a reason all chemistry beakers, bottles, and flasks are made from glass, its the only cheap inert material that doesn't on some level mix with what you are containing. Metal and plastic eventually leech out.
Rather than going overboard with the results I would follow some common sense guidelines:
1) If you are a baby or preggers then use glass containers.
2) Use glass containers for heating things in the microwave or for long term liquid storage.
Given that the vast majority of everything we drink and eat these days is either stored in plastic or touches plastic at some point I think its almost impossible to go plastic free, and I doubt it matters much.
A Chemical Research in Toxicology article here stated that rats and humans handle bisphenol A in very different ways so I'd be careful drawing lines between rat and human results.
"Enterohepatic circulation of bisphenol A glucuronide in rats results in a slow rate of excretion, whereas bisphenol A is rapidly conjugated and excreted by humans due to the absence of enterohepatic circulation. The efficient glucuronidation of bisphenol A and the rapid excretion of the formed glucuronide result in a low body burden of the estrogenic bisphenol A in humans following oral absorption of low doses."
The article actually says humans basically excreet all of the material resulting in extremely low (near undetectable) levels of biphenol A or its metabolite. They fed humans 5mg of isotopicaly labeled bisphenol A and studied what the body does with it - there is no way any plastic bottle or cup is gonna deliver 5mg of bisphenol A to you via drinking or eating its contents. Bisphenol a is an anti-oxidant used in ppm levels in the plastic to keep it from yellowing over time. So IMHO the jury is still out - BUT my kids use BPA free plastics :) With kids why take the chance?
I thought it was a good idea
I wish I could mod you up a more.
I don't understand why everyone immediately fires off that stupid one liner every time someone proposes a logical conclusion. Do any of these people understand how science works? You come up with a hypothesis based on an educated guess, then you test to see if it's true. Refuting something outright, saying that there's no concrete proof is the basis of a creationist's argument. If there is evidence to support a claim then there is clearly reason to believe there is causation, *based* on the correlation.
MABASPLOOM!
Why should I be modded down for other peoples laziness to do a simple google search to see if the the article is correct?
Just because you or others don't like the source or hate the fact that a source tries to make money to continue their profession doesn't mean the source is biased. I don't see anyone bashing CNN for having advertisements on their websites.
Since you were too lazy to type "BPA NIH" into google I'll do it for you.
http://cerhr.niehs.nih.gov/chemicals/bisphenol/draftBPA_MtgSumm080807.pdf
The Expert Panel expressed some concern that exposure to Bisphenol A causes neural and behavioral
effects.
The Expert Panel had expressed minimal concern that exposure to Bisphenol A potentially causes
accelerations in puberty.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Damn those plasmids.
Everything causes cancer, and cures it.
A lot of this "new study" stuff is horrendously lazy journalism caused by having too much space to fill.
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To parrot an industry-trade-group TV commercial, "imagine a world without plastics." No single-use hypodermic needles and other medical devices, fewer artificial body parts and almost certainly no pacemakers, etc. etc. etc.
Yes, certain plastics are harmful to certain parts of our bodies. Any decision to take them off the market or restrict their use must be made holistically, and not based on a single narrow "save the fill-in-the-blank" criterion.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
mime
n.
A modern performer who specializes in comic mimicry.
1. The art of portraying characters and acting out situations or a narrative by gestures and body movement without the use of words; pantomime.
2. A performance of pantomime.
3. An actor or actress skilled in pantomime.
4. Twenty (20) points if you run one over with a car
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
Exactly. 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 (some of which break down into rather nasty stuff in the presence of citric acid), etc., all of which lead to increased levels of disease, whether it's heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc. Those prepackaged foods are frequently packaged in containers made out of plastics that leach... yup, you guessed it... bisphenol A.
The correlation is interesting, but it isn't remotely close to proving causation. What would be required for that would be doing another study that compensates for dietary differences (and genetic predisposition and...).
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Look, if it were in response to any particular post or claim, I'd understand it. Heck, I could even swallow it as "just watch the hordes claim causation there." Then it at least also gave the question to which it answers.
But posted as a knee-jerk reaction by itself, it is just plain old dumb. And it almost invariably makes a claim about TFA, not about anyone who might misunderstand it.
I mean, picture the following conversation:
You: "But it does keep things from being subtracted by idiots who can't grasp that concept."
Me: "Then you should stop sucking cock."
You: "WTF?"
Me: "Oh, sorry, I'm just defensively answering in advance to people who think sucking cock also keeps idiots away."
If it sounds stupidly absurd, bingo, that's about how that tired meme is too. Stick to where someone actually falsely claimed causation.
Because from where I stand, the parrots reposting that meme all over the place _are_ the idiots subtracting from the conversation. That "answering" a question nobody asked is just adding useless noise to the signal.
But, just to be a lot less nice, let me tell you what it looks like to _me_ most of the time: karma whoring and ego masturbation. It allows some loser to (A) feel like a member in the big family of skeptics, and/or (B) feel already better for his lack of scientific results or education, by having something snarky to say each time any mention of science comes up. It's a one-liner ego-stroke, that's all there is to it. "Look at how much smarter I am than those 'scientists'! I know that correlation doesn't equal causation! I bet they don't!"
Bonus point if the idiot doesn't even understand what he's talking about there.
Not that I think science needs any defense from that, and far from me to keep anyone from using their own brains about any given problem or solution. By all means, please _do_ use your brains. But the whole point is that such one-liner memes _aren't_ much of a sign of brain activity, most of the time. It's just a canned slogan that most seem to wave around mechanically and unthinkingly, just because it seemed fashionable to pull it out.
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When will people learn not to eat the containers their food comes in?!?
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."
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.
"But you did pay attention, didn't you?"
No, and you're changing your argument again because your stupid attempt to act like "listen" didn't apply, when I just proved to you that it did.
"You read my post, you replied, that means you paid attention."
No, I have no fucking idea what you said. I paid attention to nothing, I simply reacted reflexively. You fail again.
"The fun thing is, I'm forcing you to keep responding, wasting more of your time and attention, getting your blood pressure up, making you rant and rave. I love it, please keep going."
FUnny, I seem to recall you tracking me down a day later to defend your stupid joke. I am repeatedly telling you I don't care about what you say, yet you think you're "getting my blood pressure up" when the reality is, my co workers and I are marvelling at how stupid you are, and how ridiculous your attempts to get over on me are.
So far, you've changed your attack every time you reply, and yet you think you've done something other than prove exactly what I said about you.
And I've seen you use that stupid "I'm getting you to respond" attack befor, it's tired just like your jokes.
"You've only shut me up in your own, delusional world."
Then reality is my world.
You cannot deny that no matter what you've done, you've gotten your moronic arguments crushed at every opportunity, and now you're acting as though your own compulsion to reply is somehow a win for you.
Of course, if you weren't so stupid, you'd realize you replied to me, so by your own argument you lose.
Again.
Now, you cannot help yourself, you are so mentally ill, so totally intellectually flawed, that you must, must reply to defend yourself, no matter how idiotic your replies are, and no matter how stupid and hypocritical you appear.
Please deny it so I can post your quotes and prove it.
And you get shut the fuck up. Again.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS