Study Claims BPA from Polycarbonate Bottles Identified in Humans

A Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study has reportedly found that “participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles, the popular, hard-plastic drinking bottles and baby bottles, showed a two-thirds increase in their urine of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA).” Jenny L. Carwile, et al., “Use of Polycarbonate Bottles and Urinary Bisphenol A Concentrations,” Environmental Health Perspectives, May
12, 2009. HSPH researchers followed 77 participants who first minimized their BPA exposure for a week, then drank all cold beverages out of plastic polycarbonate bottles for seven days, during which time their “urinary BPA concentrations increased 69 percent.” According to the study authors, their work is the first to show that BPA leached from plastic bottles can result in “a corresponding increase in urinary BPA concentrations in humans.” The study also forbid washing the bottles in dishwashers or putting hot liquids in them, as “heating has been shown to increase the leaching of BPA from polycarbonate.”

“This study is coming at an important time because many states are deciding whether to ban the use of BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups,” stated the lead author in a May 21, 2009, HSPH press release, which further suggested that BPA “has been shown to interfere with reproductive development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans.” See FoodProductionDaily.com, May 25, 2009.

In a related development, a separate study has claimed that mice with prenatal exposure to BPA “at environmentally relevant doses” and during “critical periods of differentiation” exhibited “long-term adverse reproductive and carcinogenic effects.” Retha Newbold, et al., “Prenatal Exposure to Bisphenol A at Environmentally Relevant Doses Adversely Affects the Murine Female Reproductive Tract Later in
Life,” Environmental Health Perspectives, June 2009. Researchers apparently modeled their study on previous work involving the pharmaceutical diethylstilbestrol (DES), which has a chemical structure resembling BPA. Their results reportedly indicated “the induction of numerous abnormalities, including both benign and malignant lesions, in reproductive tissues of aged female mice exposed prenatally to a broad range of BPA doses (0.1-1,000 µg/kg maternal body weight).”

“In summary,” the authors concluded, “the findings of the present study raise concerns about widespread exposure to BPA and, in particular, exposure to fetuses, infants, and children.”