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."

Comments

Re:I haven't even rtfa, but here goes

[Anonymous Coward]

Correlation.is.not.spelled.like.corelation

Re:I haven't even rtfa, but here goes

[zyl0x]

If you didn't RTFA, how do you know their results only evidenced correlation then?

Relative risk

[R2.0]

I wonder if they will compare the instances of disease to those from food poisoning from earlier methods of food storage?

Re:I haven't even rtfa, but here goes

[dreddnott]

Exactly right. "Correlation is not causation" has become more like a reflexive meme around here rather than a thoughtful addition to the conversation.

Mod parent redundant

[Al Dimond]

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.

Re:Good food, bad food

[zappepcs]

Actually, you're on to something:

constant worrying about common foods = stress
and?
stress = heart health problems

Cancer is more destructive in those persons who are less able to defend against it.
Stress = weakened immune response

Spontaneous combustion? you're on your own with that one

Re:I haven't even rtfa, but here goes

[j_166]

"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.

Re:I haven't even rtfa, but here goes

[antifoidulus]

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.

Re:I did RTFA and still can't tell much

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

So did I. Correlation only. Zero evidence of any mechanism to cause BPA and heart disease.

And I don't think it's much of a stretch to conclude that people who consume quantities of food and drink from plastic containers might have a somewhat less healthly lifestyle than those who don't.

Another thing about detecting BPA in peaple's bodies. With each new generation of analytical equipment, we gain another decade of sensitivity. Almost anything can now be detected in anything.

OTOH, my tropical fish would die if I left my stock water in 5 gallon jugs longer than a week or so.

Plastics, m'boy!

[spun]

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!

Re:I haven't even rtfa, but here goes

[geekoid]

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."