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Is the Can Worse Than the Soda?

Posted by Soulskill on from the drink-slurm-it's-highly-addictive dept.

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."

70 of 388 comments (clear)

  1. Silly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Silly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Silly by AuralityKev · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'd also like to see the stats on HFCS/sugar ratio in sodas from the 1960's to now graphed right alongside the BPA situation. Have the sodas themselves changed over time? I'd think that would have much more of an impact, along with sitting in a chair all day and eating whoppers.

    3. Re:Silly by MrEricSir · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    4. Re:Silly by Anrego · · Score: 2

      Even if they started using cane sugar rather than HFCS, it might make a difference.

      I blame the prevelance of really shitty food and the difficulty of finding decent food more than the packaging it comes in.

    5. Re:Silly by CanHasDIY · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      Not to mention, things just plain taste better when coming from a glass container.

      Yes, I know that's entirely anecdotal, but instead of having your normal, knee-jerk reaction of pointing out the obvious, I implore the /. audience to go get a can of your favorite soda, and a glass bottle of the same, and do your own taste test.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    6. Re:Silly by Endo13 · · Score: 2

      Quote from TFA:

      The finding is only a correlation between the amount of BPA in the body and obesity, rather than evidence that one causes the other.

      --
      There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
    7. Re:Silly by platypusfriend · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Beer tastes better from a can, by a lot. The seal of the metal cap on a glass bottle is inferior to the metal-on-metal seal of a can. So, in addition to less UV radiation (fluorescent lights, Sun) reaching the isomerized hop alpha acids through the glass of a bottle, a metal can just plain ol' keeps more oxygen out. And that helps keep your beer fresh. Don't just take my word for it, though!.. Try a blind can-vs-bottle test, of the exact same beers, for yourself. It's really interesting.

    8. Re:Silly by Brian+Feldman · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

      --
      Brian Fundakowski Feldman
    9. Re:Silly by Nadaka · · Score: 5, Funny

      glass

    10. Re:Silly by Nadaka · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

    11. Re:Silly by dgatwood · · Score: 2

      At the absolute minimum, "worse than the soda" is pretty unlikely.

      "Worse than the soda" actually isn't unlikely. Hormonal imbalances are a major cause of weight gain. If your hormones are significantly out of balance, you aren't going to achieve a healthy weight even if you practically starve yourself.

      Also, soda is arguably one of the least significant sources of BPA in people's diet. Most people don't drink from cans all that often; they drink soda from 2-liter bottles (which do not contain BPA), from soda fountain tanks (which AFAIK are not lined with BPA), etc.

      The average person is exposed to BPA from many, many other sources—canned foods, plastic tupperware dishes (particularly while reheating food in them), dental fillings and sealants, reusable plastic water bottles of all types, the ink used on newspapers and many cash register receipts, and so on.

      Besides, it is straightforward to compensate for any bias in the data caused by the tiny portion of BPA that comes from people's soda drinking habits.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    12. Re:Silly by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    13. Re:Silly by dinfinity · · Score: 2

      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.

      Yep. From the abstract: "Controlling for race/ethnicity, age, caregiver education, poverty to income ratio, sex, serum cotinine level, caloric intake, television watching, and urinary creatinine level, children in the lowest urinary BPA quartile had a lower estimated prevalence of obesity".

      So apparently they haven't controlled for the soda (or sugar) intake. On the other hand, I'd expect that to be correlated to a number of the factors they did control for.

    14. Re:Silly by anagama · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sierra Nevada Pale Ale:

      This isn't a Bud:
      http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/sierra-nevada-pale-ale-bottle-can/365/

      And recently, it's being sold in bottles and cans -- I've seen it my local supermarkets:
      http://www.craftcans.com/sierra-nevada-pale-alesierra-nevada-brewing-company

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    15. Re:Silly by jenningsthecat · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...you're a tool if you think solid beer isn't available in can form.

      It's only solid if it's frozen. I prefer my beer in a liquid state, thanks.

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    16. Re:Silly by rednip · · Score: 2

      Plenty, but you might have to look a little as few retailers even have the space to sell both for anything but some domestics. Often the good beers are only sold in cans in places or near them, that prohibit glass containers but allow alcohol.

      It's true that light and air are among the worst enemies of liquid bread and that canned is considered 'better' by a certain crowd. However, one could argue that a bottled beer is kept in the dark both in it's package and in the fridge. Also the cap isn't really that bad, there is a vacuum seal, that you even hear released, just like you do in a can. If drinking a beer I'd typically order a bottle if given a chance, however, BPA does worry me some, so I think I'd be sticking more closely to bottles the rare times that I drink beer.

      You'd think that for something like infant formula bottles and such they'd use 'tried and tested' materials, if only for liability issues.

      --
      The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
    17. Re:Silly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Up until the late 1970s cans had a corrosion-resistant liner made from wax. This was replaced by bpa-based lacquers - I worked for a coatings vendor at this time who watched their business disappear due to this shift. Wax coatings were sprayed in just before the product, the BPA finish went on at the coil plant or can maker. To some extent it just pushed the liability upstream. The coatings we made we resistant to pretty much everything outside of aromatic solvents and heat. Depressing to see that what replaced them leeched chemicals into the food. Guess this is our version of the roman lead cooking pots.

    18. Re:Silly by timeOday · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      Oh boy, thanks for sharing your tremendously valuable Common Sense with us.

      In fact this study is shocking and here is why (in bold):

      The researchers pulled data from the 2003 to 2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, and after controlling for differences in ethnicity, age, caregiver education, income level, sex, caloric intake, television viewing habits and other factors, they found that children and adolescents with the highest levels of BPA in their urine had a 2.6 times greater chance of being obese than those with the lowest levels. Overall, 22.3 percent of those in the quartile with the highest levels of BPA were obese, compared with just 10.3 percent of those in the quartile with the lowest levels of BPA.

      So here is what I pull from the emphasized bits:

      • No, it is not explained by caloric intake. Nor by physical activity (or at least a proxy for it).
      • The effect size is enormous. A 160% increase in risk of obesity!
      • The sample size is large: 10.3% and 22.3% are both relatively large proportions of subjects in the study. So this is almost certainly not a spurious correlation between rare events.

      The idea of significantly impacting the obesity epidemic simply by replacing BPA with something else is hard to believe. But occasionally a technical breakthrough on what was previously considered an issue of character and morality does does occur, and can be revolutionary: consider birth control.

    19. Re:Silly by rednip · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
    20. Re:Silly by BetterSense · · Score: 4, Informative

      Shiner Bock
      Heineken

    21. Re:Silly by zippthorne · · Score: 2

      Guinness.

      But if you must get guinness that isn't on tap, the bottle does a better job because of the rocket widget....

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    22. Re:Silly by sjames · · Score: 2

      The counter to that is that I went from 2 liters a day to none at all (I don't even like the taste now) and.....nothing changed.

    23. Re:Silly by Chuckstar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    24. Re:Silly by Chuckstar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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).

    25. Re:Silly by Urza9814 · · Score: 2

      Ever try to drink a plain seltzer water? Sugar helps get the enormous amounts of dry nastiness down your throat.

      ...I'm confused...I'm sitting here drinking from a two liter bottle of straight seltzer as I type this...why is sugar necessary?

      and my father...my god, the man goes through three liters of the stuff EVERY DAY. It's all he drinks!

      It's even better if you toss in some lime and gin...or maybe vodka...or some lime, gin, and quinine... ;)

      Seriously though, anyone who wants to cut down on sugary, HFCS-loaded soda...try buying a bottle of flavored seltzer. Soo much more refreshing. Or buy plain seltzer and toss in a tiny amount of juice. Less sugar, still fizzy, still sweet, and no the sticky syrupy residue.

    26. Re:Silly by Brian+Feldman · · Score: 2

      I never said that -- for example, Dale's Pale Ale comes in a can and is one of the best IPAs that I have ever had. My point was only that very few good beers come in both. Some that are have no comparison -- Guinness in a bottle is Extra Stout, not the same stuff that gets canned.

      --
      Brian Fundakowski Feldman
    27. Re:Silly by NeoMorphy · · Score: 2

      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.

      At least as far back as 1982 you could get a double quarter pounder with cheese, you just had to ask for it and they would make it for you. You would be surprised at how flexable they can be.

    28. Re:Silly by tibit · · Score: 2

      Dude, those bacteria must be some pretty vile creatures then. They are converting all this "absorbed/used" energy into what? Heat? Energy of chemical bonds in something that is dumped out? What? Where does that energy magically disappear, and will you sell me some of those bacteria, because I have a whole bunch of uses for them!

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    29. Re:Silly by adolf · · Score: 2

      The last 12-pack of Guinness bottles I bought had no rocket widget, but instead some fancy verbiage on the package about how they decided that it wasn't necessary.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
    30. Re:Silly by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    31. Re:Silly by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm sorry. But I just ran objective tests on various beers using my Mass Beer Spectacle-ometer and it clearly indicated that bottled beer, while better than tap beer, is actually not as good as canned beer. It also indicated that Hillary Clinton is hot.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    32. Re:Silly by timeOday · · Score: 2

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

      Nope! If your theory is that caloric intake is the real cause, what you must now explain is why misreporting of caloric intake (not caloric intake itself!) would be so strongly correlated with BPA in the bloodstream.

      Some interesting cases to look at would be those with low BPA and high self-reported caloric intake (for example people eating pies or drinking sugared fountain drinks instead of drinking soda from cans), or people with high BPA and low caloric intake (such as people who drink lots of diet soda from cans).

    33. Re:Silly by Silentknyght · · Score: 2

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

      Modded "informative"? As a homebrewer and craft beer connoisseur, this is totally false. Let's not judge a book by its cover, eh? Canned beer--and really most other canned food--used to be taste awfully worse than its non-canned counterparts, at least before the advent of plastic lined cans... Now-a-days, you can buy some really fantastic craft beer in cans. Moreover, it has fewer detrimental effects due to light spoilage (aluminum being opaque and all), and you can also take it to places you can't take bottles.

    34. Re:Silly by breeze95 · · Score: 2

      Beer tastes better from a can, by a lot. The seal of the metal cap on a glass bottle is inferior to the metal-on-metal seal of a can. So, in addition to less UV radiation (fluorescent lights, Sun) reaching the isomerized hop alpha acids through the glass of a bottle, a metal can just plain ol' keeps more oxygen out. And that helps keep your beer fresh. Don't just take my word for it, though!.. Try a blind can-vs-bottle test, of the exact same beers, for yourself. It's really interesting.

      Actually, my experience is the opposite. I stopped drinking canned beer in favor of bottle beer because I find can beer has a metallic taste. UV radiation doesn't penetrate brown bottles so if you beer is in a brown bottle there shouldn't be a problem. Now. beer in clear or green bottles may be affected by light.

    35. Re:Silly by ottothecow · · Score: 2
      Did you really drink as much soda though? There are plenty of 350lb people who drink pepsi by the 1 or 2-liter bottle.

      I enjoyed a good can of mountain dew in high school/early college...for a while being at 2 cans on a normal day. I had access too as much as I wanted but, unless I was staying up late to finish a paper or something, I never could stomach drinking more than 2. Then it became just one...and then it became none.

      Consuming 2 liters of pop a day is pretty hard to defeat with just exercise.

      --
      Bottles.
    36. Re:Silly by Fastolfe · · Score: 4, Informative

      I have no idea if the OP's statements are accurate or not, but just because you consume something that has "100 calories" does not mean your body will metabolize 100 calories of energy. If the food is incompletely digested (perhaps because the food is hard to break down), you will excrete undigested food energy. The method used to determine caloric energy does not resemble the human digestive system, and it is indeed possible for only a portion of the measured food energy to actually be absorbed by the organism consuming it.

    37. Re:Silly by Velex · · Score: 2

      Oddly, though, higher levels of testosterone are associated with easier weight loss. Just my $0.02, not that I'd want any more than 50 ng/ml in my body. ymmv.

      --
      Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
    38. Re:Silly by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 5, Informative

      Indeed. But it goes further. There is substantial evidence that bulk fructose, in it's role as 50% of sucrose is the underlying cause of the modern rise of obesity.

      The story goes like this..

      The POMC neurons in the brain (the VMH - Ventromedial Hypothalamus to be precise) regulates energy expenditure are hunger based on levels of glucose, non esterified fatty acids and various hormones, principally insulin and leptin.

      Bulk fructose damages those cells, so the regulation goes out of whack. Then the carb-insulin mechanism of obesity kicks in and you're sensitive to carbs. Now regardless of the leptin signaling and the copious NEFAs, the brain isn't telling the rest of the body that you're in an energy rich environment and so it resist burning fat in favor of storing it and you're hungry all the time.

      The evidence is pretty good and getting stronger as new studies dig in. E.G. There are many ways to break the VMH in rats. Do it and they get fat. Starve them and they stay fat, but rob their own muscles and organs in order to survive, while leaving the fat cells intact. MSG will do it, Fructose will do it. An ice pick will do it. Section the brains of freshly dead fat people and they have exactly the same lesions in their VMH.

      We never had bulk fructose until recent centuries and we never had it in the quantities we have it now. People fart around arguing about micro-nutrients and trace elements looking for reasons, but the macro-nutrients are where the first order effects can be explained.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    39. Re:Silly by Bremic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    40. Re:Silly by mjwx · · Score: 2

      It also indicated that Hillary Clinton is hot.

      So she found that radioactive rod that was lost in Texas last week?

      Didn't anyone tell her not to open it?

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    41. Re:Silly by potpie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Contrary to popular belief, the Romans knew about lead poisoning and figured out ways to avoid it. For instance, aqueducts were lined with lead to make them waterproof. New aqueducts were mandated to run for a certain amount of time before water was drawn from them. In that time, the Romans knew, the minerals in the hard water would deposit on the lead and form a protective coating. Nevertheless, lead shavings were used as a seasoning on food. You may say that's horrendously stupid in a society that knows about lead poisoning, but then there's cigarettes today.

      --
      Esoteric reference.
    42. Re:Silly by Evtim · · Score: 2, Funny

      The bosses of Amstel, Heineken and Grolsh are meeting in a cafe (probably for price-fixing). The waiter comes and the Heineken boss orders Heineken beer. The Amstel boss orders Amstel and the Grolsh boss orders one Amstel and one Heineken!! Noticing the incredulous stares of the others he says "Oh, it is too early for a beer".

      Seriously though, why does it take at least a decade before something that is well known to scientist finds its place in the public domain, especially when the data is vitally important for the public? Is the use of a tinfoil hat warranted in this case? I think yes...

      I know about this issue for more than a decade from my biochemistry-educated friends. In fact one of them after his kid was born visited me in Western Europe and the first thing he said after the greetings was "Can we find anywhere in this country a glass baby bottle?!" Turned out he had investigated thoroughly the full range of plastic baby bottles available on the market (including ultra expensive brands) and found they all release ungodly amounts of dangerous stuff (including the BPA). I had to disappoint him, but we still found a solution. One chain of supermarkets often uses fruits that are about to expire to make juice without any additives, that needs to be consumed within 24 hours. They use glass bottles with a tread. The tread could be used to attache the silicon sleeve for the baby to suck on. Case closed. Conclusion:

      The nerds will inherit the Earth (our children will be healthier)!!

    43. Re:Silly by kraut · · Score: 2

      Bottles can also be reused (not only recycled).

      Indeed. That's the whole point.

      The problem with glass is that it requires more energy to make than a can

      Not sure about that. Aluminium is very energy intensive to produce, and of course the cost of the glass bottle is amortized over tens (or hundreds) of uses.

      AND more energy and water to wash a bottle before reuse than to make a can.

      I think anyone who has ever washed dishes would disagree with that.

      The big problem with glass bottles is that they are heavy. That increases transport costs, reduces stock density, and reduces sales. People can pick up a two litre plastic bottle quite comfortably - a two litre glass bottle would be a lot heavier.

      --
      no taxation without representation!
    44. Re:Silly by makomk · · Score: 2

      The first law of thermodynamics says nothing about whether the levels of calorie intake required to lose weight are going to be healthy. (It doesn't even require them to be non-fatal!) From what I've heard, at least some people with hormonal imbalances actually found that when they tried to lose weight by cutting down on food it made them actually unable to function and work normally.

    45. Re:Silly by bloodhawk · · Score: 2

      I completely disagree, beer definitely tastes better from a bottle, I find the can seems to do something nasty to the taste, similar to soda cans. beer is also best drunk while relatively freshly bottled and you should never store it in the light anyway.

  2. We already know soda drinkers are fat by mewsenews · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:We already know soda drinkers are fat by reverseengineer · · Score: 4, Informative
      Well, they shouldn't, if they're drinking out of 2L bottles, most of which are polyethylene terephthalate and generally do not contain BPA, which is why the focus here is on the epoxy liners of many aluminum cans. They did try to control for caloric intake in the study:

      Controlling for race/ethnicity, age, caregiver education, poverty to income ratio, sex, serum cotinine level, caloric intake, television watching, and urinary creatinine level, children in the lowest urinary BPA quartile had a lower estimated prevalence of obesity (10.3% [95% CI, 7.5%-13.1%]) than those in quartiles 2 (20.1% [95% CI, 14.5%-25.6%]), 3 (19.0% [95% CI, 13.7%-24.2%]), and 4 (22.3% [95% CI, 16.6%-27.9%]).

      However, they also admit in the conclusions, "Explanations of the association cannot rule out the possibility that obese children ingest food with higher BPA content or have greater adipose stores of BPA."

      --
      "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
  3. Amount in urine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The studies that look at the mount of BPA in urine drive me crazy. They take a group of people, give them some food or liquid with BPA, then freak out when it's in their urine.

    I'll let you in on a little secret here: humans have the ability to excrete BPA. Mice do not. All those studies that show health issues in mice from BPA ingestion are testing on creatures that cannot rid their bodies of the compound.

    1. Re:Amount in urine by kEnder242 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I googled something and found something that disputes your claim that

      humans have the ability to excrete BPA. Mice do not.

      http://healthandenvironmentonline.com/issue-archive/bpa-science-safety-1/

      Slashdot: A mix between a peer review journal and "bum fights"

      --
      my associative arrays can kick your hash - TCL
    2. Re:Amount in urine by sjames · · Score: 2

      If you've ever lived with a woman who's taken BC, you would know that your preceding statement is flatly false. A woman will end up trying several different types of BC, finding one that doesn't cause weight gain / lack of desire / batshit insanity / skin breakouts / dry skin / hair falling out / BEARDO TAKE OUT THE FUCKING GARBAGE syndrome / etc

      Exactly. That's true i spite of women excreting the contraceptives. So excreting a substance isn't the same as being unaffected by it.

    3. Re:Amount in urine by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dr Julia Taylor, the author of this work, is a co-worker of Prof Frederick S. vom Saal. von Saal is the primary BPA critic and is under a lot of criticism because much of his work has been found to be not reproducable in large multigeneration studies done in national labs both in the United States and Europe.

      Lack of reproducability in small volume academic exploratory studies is a big problem in the endocrine literature. It's very worth being aware of when evaluating these papers.

      http://ukpmc.ac.uk/articles/PMC3135059//reload=0;jsessionid=SXzQiL3qssivuEwafSgl.24

  4. Blame the can! by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 2

    And the fork/spoon! They're what made me fat!

    --
    Chaos maximizes locally around me.
  5. Let's find an easy scapegoat for obesity . . . by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2, Insightful

    . . . 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!"

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    1. Re:Let's find an easy scapegoat for obesity . . . by quantaman · · Score: 2

      Having run a few marathons and covering 2000+ km per year I'd dispute the effects of cardiovascular exercise on weight loss (there's a lot of other great reasons to run, weight loss just isn't one of them). High intensity training has some effect (I don't think it's significant though), but a lot of endurance exercise doesn't really affect weight loss.

      Diet however, can make a huge impact, there's a lot of other factors that also make a huge impact (genetics, maybe gut flora, etc), but diet is the only one we can really manipulate.

      --
      I stole this Sig
  6. I'm a fat bastard.. by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 2

    and I know who to blame: myself. I just eat too much and don't get enough exercise.

    I think this short 30 second youtube video is appropriate for the discussion, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ihOi56J17Hw

    1. Re:I'm a fat bastard.. by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 2

      and I know who to blame: myself. I just eat too much and don't get enough exercise.
         

      It's never too late to fix that. I started biking to work 16 years ago. I've dropped from 250# to 160#, and now I even teach spin classes.

      --

      ---
      ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
    2. Re:I'm a fat bastard.. by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  7. 2L soda = 800 calories by jeko · · Score: 2

    Two liters of soda carries in the neighborhood of 800 calories. The usual number quoted is that running burns about 100-120 calories per mile. Roughly speaking, you're gonna pay for that two-liter soda with a seven mile run.

    Need to gain weight fast? One pound of fat = 3500 extra calories. Roughly, eight or nine liters or four six-packs (22 cans) of soda equal one pound. Drink a six-pack a day and you'll be a pound, pound and a half heavier by the end of the week. You'll be four or five pounds overweight by the end of the month. You can be grossly clinically obese by the end of the year, simply from drinking soda alone.

    Now, yeah, I get personal freedom and, no, we shouldn't ban bacon and candy, but I have a lot of sympathy for the noise coming out of New York about banning soda. I was raised to think soda was basically "Water Plus," and the Coca Cola Company spent billions programming me to think "Coke Is It." I mean, good grief, we literally get our picture of Santa Claus from a Coca Cola ad, so deep is soda ingrained in American culture.

    It took a ridiculous amount of effort as an adult to look at a can of soda and link that to feeling bad from poor health. It was ridiculous how hard it was to teach myself that I should look at a can of Coke and a cigarette the same way, since both would have roughly comparable deleterious effects on my health.

    Some individuals would probably be just fine drinking 2L of sugar soda from plastic bottles if they're active enough to burn off the extra calories.

    No one, nobody, is going to stay fine if they're drinking two liters of soda a day.

    --
    He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
  8. strange end result by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Funny

    World saved by Mexican Coke! (Coca-Cola, that is).

  9. BPA also linked to increased breast cancer risk by felixrising · · Score: 2

    There was a recent confirmation of endocrine-disruptors such as BPA causing breast cancer in the female gene line which is passed on to not just the daughter, but the granddaughter and great grandaughter too... http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n9/full/ncomms2058.html

  10. WARNING: BPA lining in CANNED FOOD as well !! by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    One thing about this article submit is that it only tells part of the story.

    BPA lining is not only present in the soda can.

    BPA lining is also present in CANNED FOOD - yes, inside the cans that are used for CANNED FOOD

    http://www.thedailygreen.com/going-green/tips/bpa-in-canned-foods

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:WARNING: BPA lining in CANNED FOOD as well !! by fragMasterFlash · · Score: 2

      How many of the canned foods you eat are as acidic as soda? Also food cans are vacuum sealed whereas carbonated soda cans are pressurized. At a guess I would suspect the lining in the soda can is more likely to break down over time. Perhaps there is something to those freshness dates that have been stamped on the cans for the past few years after all?

    2. Re:WARNING: BPA lining in CANNED FOOD as well !! by smooth+wombat · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  11. Other sources of BPA might be worse by TimTucker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  12. BPA is everywhere by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 2

    http://website.lineone.net/~mwarhurst/bisphenol.html

    Click the above link and see for yourself where the BPA-compound (resins, epoxy) has been used

    And one of those is "WATER PIPE"

    Yes, the water pipe that you got your tap water from

    You do not need to drink can soda

    You do not need to eat canned food

    All you need is to turn on the tap and there you go, you get BPA.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:BPA is everywhere by timeOday · · Score: 4, Informative

      There is not an infinite supply of BPA in any given bottle or water pipe. The thing with a pop can is it's single use, so you're always getting a fresh dose.

  13. Re:Is BPA really bad? by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    Not if I wax.

  14. No more rocket widget :( by Zenin · · Score: 2

    Guinness took out the rocket widgets from bottles about a year or so ago, while at the same time replacing the nitrogen heavy gas mix with pure carbon dioxide.

    The result is that Guinness from a bottle now tastes like complete ass and if you poor it out you'll notice the head looks much more like Coke-Cola then anything you might call stout.

    The cans still have the widget and the right gas and still taste great. Or just drink Murphy's, it's a much better stout then Guinness anyway.

    --
    My /. uid is better then your /. uid
  15. Recycling by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 2

    We have a recycling center in my tiny burg now. They only accept glass inside (when they're open) as people refused to 'place' glass bottles and jars in the bin, but dropped them in (mainly for the thrill of the shattering sound I bet), causing danger for the workers and even themselves. Now I find myself far more hesitant to buy something in glass as I now have to hang on to them for weeks before having time to take them in. Yes, yes; first world problems... still a real issue.