Is the Can Worse Than the Soda?

DevotedSkeptic sends this excerpt about research that found a correlation between the use of a common food-packaging chemical and obesity rates. "Since the 1960s, manufacturers have widely used the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) in plastics and food packaging. Only recently, though, have scientists begun thoroughly looking into how the compound might affect human health—and what they've found has been a cause for concern. Starting in 2006, a series of studies, mostly in mice, indicated that the chemical might act as an endocrine disruptor (by mimicking the hormone estrogen), cause problems during development and potentially affect the reproductive system, reducing fertility. After a 2010 Food and Drug Administration report warned that the compound could pose an especially hazardous risk for fetuses, infants and young children, BPA-free water bottles and food containers started flying off the shelves. In July, the FDA banned the use of BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups, but the chemical is still present in aluminum cans, containers of baby formula and other packaging materials. Now comes another piece of data on a potential risk from BPA but in an area of health in which it has largely been overlooked: obesity. A study by researchers from New York University, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at a sample of nearly 3,000 children and teens across the country and found a 'significant' link between the amount of BPA in their urine and the prevalence of obesity."

Comments

Silly

[Anonymous Coward]

BPA or not, there is probably a significant link between teens who drink a lot of soda and those that don't. Maybe this obvious correlation is not causation issue is covered in the full publication (I only read the excerpt)... but if not, this is pretty damn stupid.

There is probably a significant link between the number of fast food wrappers scattered around someones home and obesity, but that doesn't mean the ink in the paper is to blame.

At the absolute minimum, "worse than the soda" is pretty unlikely. Soda is definitely bad for you, whereas BPA _might_ be bad young children and infants.

And in general, I think while environmental factors do probably contribute in a small way to obesity, it seems silly to worry about these things when the real causes are pretty damn obvious: eating wrong and getting no exercise. That bit o` BPA you drank probably made no difference, but your lifestyle of sitting in a chair all day at the office, then going home and sitting on a different chair until bed while eating a whopper probably made a huge difference.

Re:Silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's assume BPA is bad. The question is, is it worse than no BPA? The reasons cans are lined with plastic are to prevent botulism and to keep the contents from eating through the cans.

Really, though, there's no reason we need to keep doing this. Just switch everything back to glass. The occasional shattering bottle is probably less of a danger to society than the constant poisoning through food and drinks.

Re:Silly

[MrEricSir]

The question is, is it worse than no BPA? The reasons cans are lined with plastic are to prevent botulism and to keep the contents from eating through the cans.

Or, you know, we could be lining our canned food items with something that's safe.

Re:Silly

[Brian Feldman]

What "beer" can you get in both a bottle or a can?

Re:Silly

[Nadaka]

Sorry, but no. Canned beer is worse than bottled beer is worse than tap beer.

Re:Silly

[tnk1]

Soda in general is absolutely horrible. I've never really been very much overweight, but at one point I got up there enough to decide that I wanted to lose some weight. The first thing I did was cut my soda intake from whenever I felt like it down to "merely" twice a day. I lost ten pounds in just two or three weeks and the weight stayed off. I also cut down on other things afterward, but the weight never came off as fast as it did after first regulating my soda intake.

Having managed to successfully lose weight when I wanted to without resorting to salads or some special food, the secret to pure weight loss is simply not eating more calories than you need for the day. That's it. As long as you actually do it, as opposed to thinking that eating a gallon of "low fat" ice cream is going to make you lose weight, you always lose weight. There are days it spikes up and down, but if you maintain it day after day, you make steady progress.

Things like BPA or certain types of food are really only going to be corner cases. Your body cannot store fat from nowhere. If your body uses up all the calories ingested for that day for energy and then some, you will either lose fat or at the very least, you won't have much to make fat from. Endocrine problems are going to be an issue, but even if your body stores extra fat, it gets used up with normal daily exertion, and even more with exercise. You may never be thin, but you're not going to be obese.

Now, the major problem with things like soda isn't that it is soda, it's that it is a high calorie beverage that gives you zero nutritional value. That means to get proteins and nutrients, you have to eat other things which also have calories and you will become hungry for those things because your body won't allow you to fall over dead without letting you know something is missing. You get fat from soda because you have to eat other things with it. That goes even for diet soda (to a lesser extent). It also goes for anything that is high density fat/carbs, but lacks nutrition you need.

So, if BPA has made an epidemic of anything, I'd say it was more like an epidemic of being "slightly chubby", but not one of obesity.

Re:Silly

[rednip]

When I was a kid, the McDonald's large was the size of their smallest adult cup today, and the largest sandwich you could buy was a single quarter pound of meat.

Re:Silly

[Chuckstar]

BPA-free plastic has other chemicals that replace the functionality of BPA. We know less about those chemicals than we do about BPA. Pick your poison.

Re:Silly

[Chuckstar]

It's hard to control for caloric intake. You're relying on people self-reporting.

Also, contrary to popular myth, all calories are not the same. Your body absorbs much more energy from 100 calories of sugar, for example, than it does from 100 calories of raw vegetables. This is because calorie content is based on laboratory measurements and does not factor in calories lost when food is harder to digest, or when food is not fully digested (in which case the energy is instead absorbed/used by bacteria in the colon).

Re:Silly

[Zero__Kelvin]

I think that we should paint the inside of houses with something besides lead paint. I think we should use something safer. Now, some of you will look to me for the answer, since I have no doubt that you believe that I just claimed to be an expert on the matter. I would like to point out that I can, in fact, want to use something safer without claiming to be an expert. It is an odd concept, I know, but really ... I assure you ... it is true.

Also, I - like many Americans - would like the government to do a better job. Again, you probably think I just claimed that I am a political genus. I once again feel the need to point out that I am not making such a claim. As it turns out I really can suggest we do something better even if I don't know exactly what that "something better" might be. I leave that to the experts, not because they have a solid track record, but because I am not, in fact, one of the experts.

It would be a sad(der?) world indeed if the barrier to wanting a better approach was expertise in the matter.

Re:Silly

[Bremic]

For hundreds of years food and drink was regularly contained in a substance called "glass". Some of these glass containers have survived more than a century of regular use are are still considered safe and functional.

After drinking soda that had been stored from the factory in a glass bottle, I was surprised how the same soda out of a can tasted very different, and I rarely drink out of cans.
Plastics then became common (in the 80s) and the flavor was again very different. The rare times I drink soda now I still try to get it in glass.

I understand this isn't a solution, but if (as a society) we have put convenience ahead of health and safety, then we shouldn't be ridiculing those who suggest we should have chosen a different path. It has been very obvious since soda was put in cans that the cans affected the contents, simply through taste.

We already know soda drinkers are fat

[mewsenews]

Everyone on /. already knows correlation != causation. People that drink 2L bottles of soda on a regular basis are going to high higher BPA and higher obesity.

Let's find an easy scapegoat for obesity . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . it's not overeating and lack of exercise. Let's blame the soda can!

It's sure enough easier than convincing people to eat healthy and get more exercise . . .

"It's not my fault that I'm fat . . . I was given too much BPA as a child!"

Re:Amount in urine

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll let you in on a little secret here: women excrete oral contraceptives and yet they appear to function just fine between the time they're taken and the time they're pissed out.

Just remember, 40 years ago we started loading up little boys with female hormones. Now they're marrying each other.

Re:I'm a fat bastard..

[Adult film producer]

It's probably time for me to change my habits. I'm 270 right now when my optimal genetic weight is probably about 195/200 (as my father and brothers are.) Frankly, sometimes the weight hurts my ankles... I spend way too much time in front of the computer editing video and drinking coffee. Its kind of pathetic.

Maybe I should take this moment to reflect and do something about it, I know I would be a lot happier if I did.

Other sources of BPA might be worse

[TimTucker]

There's also the finding that many types of thermal paper contain much larger amounts of BPA than food packaging:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/07/28/study-finds-bpa-in-store-receipts-health-effects-as-yet-unclear/

Would be interesting if the link between obesity and eating fast food was only partly due to the food itself and partly due to handling the receipts.

Re:WARNING: BPA lining in CANNED FOOD as well !!

[smooth wombat]

If people are too lazy to extract the contents of a can into a pan, there are other issues to consider than just what lines a can.

But as I keep getting modded down when I talk about personal responsibility in healthcare, I guess that goes out the window as well when talking about safely handling food.