Studies Prove BPA Can Cross Placenta To Fetuses

Totes McGotes writes "From canned food to plastic bottles, Bisphenol-A seems to be cropping up everywhere, and now two new studies show that BPA freely crosses the placenta from pregnant mother to fetus. Plus, the research found that chemical transformations occur in the fetus allowing inactive BPA to be converted to the active form."

Comments

Re:Great description

[camperdave]

Bisphenol A is a component in polycarbonate plastics, used to make stuff like baby and water bottles, sports equipment, medical and dental devices, dental fillings and sealants, eyeglass lenses, CDs and DVDs, and household electronics. It is also used in thermal and carbonless paper, and as a protective coating on the inside of tin cans. BPA has been linked to obesity and many cancers, and worst of all (dumm, dumm, DAHHHH) adult male sexual dysfunction.

Sort of

[Benfea]

It acts like female hormones once it gets inside the human body. Not good for adults, but really bad for babies.

Re:Enough with the "Proof"

[thePig]

There has been quite a bit of scientific literature regarding BPA - see the links from Wikipedia.

Re:The endocrine disruptor scam

[mcgrew]

According to Wikipedia you remember it wrong. And it wasn't the '90s, it was two years ago.

In 2007, a consensus statement by 38 experts on bisphenol A concluded that average levels in people are above those that cause harm to many animals in laboratory experiments.[28] A panel convened by the U.S. National Institutes of Health determined that there was "some concern" about BPA's effects on fetal and infant brain development and behavior.[10] A 2008 report by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) later agreed with the panel, expressing "some concern for effects on the brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and children at current human exposures to bisphenol A," and "minimal concern for effects on the mammary gland and an earlier age for puberty for females in fetuses, infants, and children at current human exposures to bisphenol A." The NTP had "negligible concern that exposure of pregnant women to bisphenol A will result in fetal or neonatal mortality, birth defects, or reduced birth weight and growth in their offspring."[29]

Also, later in the wiki article it says there's a link between BPA and both obesity and drug abuse.

Disruption of the dopaminergic system
A 2005 review concluded that prenatal and neonatal exposure to BPA in mice can potentiate the central dopaminergic systems, resulting in the supersensitivity to the drugs-of-abuse-induced reward effects and hyperlocomotion.[47]

A 2008 review has concluded that BPA, mimic estrogenic activity and impact various dopaminergic processes to enhance mesolimbic dopamine activity resulting in hyperactivity, attention deficits, and a heightened sensitivity to drugs of abuse.[48]

A 2009 study on rats has concluded that prenatal and neonatal exposure to low-dose BPA causes deficits in development at dorsolateral striatum via altering the function of dopaminergic receptors.[49] Another 2009 study has found associated changes in the dopaminergic system.[45]

Re:Aaaand...

[Bakkster]

Oh, they're all bad.

Say what now? Nylon? Polyethylene? Nothing bad about them at all.

As a rule, it's usually the additives and trace chemicals from production that cause problems. All plastics are large chain molecules (and thus not absorbed by the body) and most are quite stable and do not break into monamers that could very easily (which is why most plastics are not biodegradable, and the very reason they are used).

Re:Bisphenol-A

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Actually, while in no way implicating BPA, in the average age of puberty has been dropping in Western countries for the past 170 years (since the 1840s according to the Wikipedia article). The disparity seems to correlate at least in part, to industrialization; the shift started later in Japan (1945), but progressed more rapidly (dropping by 11 months per decade, instead of 4 months per decade in Europe). In 1840, the average age of first menstruation was 17, in France, 15.3. Nowadays, either age would be considered quite late; typical onset of menstruation is now around age 11.75 worldwide; 12.5 in the U.S.

Clearly, BPA isn't responsible for the entire historical shift (what with BPA containing plastics only becoming common in the last 50 years or so); changes in diet (particularly the reduction in malnourishment levels) and activity levels (hunter gatherer groups tend to have an onset later than their diet would otherwise allow for) are responsible for some of the difference. But the increased exposure to all sorts of hormone mimicking chemicals (such as BPA) was likely responsible for some of the shift as well. The question is whether BPA is unusually damaging, whether it is possible to remove BPA and other hormone mimicking chemicals from our products and the environment without affecting us negatively in other ways, etc.

Unlike the realm of medicine, where the scientific method has been applied for to evaluate treatments more and more often in recent decades, the chemical industry remains largely untested and unregulated. People were painting their homes with lead paint and burning leaded gas in their cars and it took decades for studies to make the link to retardation and poor impulse control. For something like BPA, where the negative effects seem to be longer term and less severe than that of lead poisoning, it's not at all surprising that no one has investigated it until recently.

Re:Great description

[dacarr]

Not quite. Type 2 is HDPE, which according to Wikipedia, does not use BPA. Same with types 1, 4, 5, and 6 - PETE, LDPE, Polypropylene, and Polystyrene, respectively. 3 (PVC) and some 7 (Other, particularly polycarbonate and epoxy) use them.

Does it though?

[snowwrestler]

BPA as a chemical was discovered in the 19th century and it was investigated as a synthetic estrogen in the 1930s. However, it was never pursued as a production estrogen replacement (unlike DES). The question is, why not? Try to find an answer online--it's very difficult.

My understanding is that while it appeared to act like estrogen in the test tube, it turned out to have very little measurable estrogen-like effect in humans. My understanding is based on reading I did on BPA several years ago, but I have misplaced the citations. If anyone has a link to a detailed history of the pharma research involving BPA in the early 20th century, I'd be interested to read it. The Wikipedia article, for instance, is pretty much silent on anything involving BPA before a few years ago.