How Plastic We've Become - Our bodies carry residues of kitchen plastics

Science News ^ | Jan. 19, 2008 | Janet Raloff

[neverdem]

In the 1967 film classic The Graduate, a businessman corners Benjamin Braddock at a cocktail party and gives him a bit of career advice. "Just one word…plastics."

Although Benjamin didn't heed that recommendation, plenty of other young graduates did. Today, the planet is awash in products spawned by the plastics industry. Residues of plastics have become ubiquitous in the environment—and in our bodies.

A federal government study now reports that bisphenol A (BPA)—the building block of one of the most widely used plastics—laces the bodies of the vast majority of U.S. residents young and old.

Manufacturers link BPA molecules into long chains, called polymers, to make polycarbonate plastics. All of those clear, brittle plastics used in baby bottles, food ware, and small kitchen appliances (like food-processor bowls) are made from polycarbonates. BPA-based resins also line the interiors of most food, beer, and soft-drink cans. With use and heating, polycarbonates can break down, leaching BPA into the materials they contact. Such as foods.

And that could be bad if what happens in laboratory animals also happens in people, because studies in rodents show that BPA can trigger a host of harmful changes, from reproductive havoc to impaired blood-sugar control and obesity (SN: 9/29/07, p. 202).

For the new study, scientists analyzed urine from some 2,500 people who had been recruited between 2003 and 2004 for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Roughly 92 percent of the individuals hosted measurable amounts of BPA, according to a report in the January Environmental Health Perspectives. It's the first study to measure the pollutant in a representative cross-section of the U.S. population.

Typically, only small traces of BPA turned up, concentrations of a few parts per billion in urine, note chemist Antonia M. Calafat and her colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control...

[Veto!]

Scary!

[Grimmy]

Yay! I’m not fat because I’m lazy! I’m fat because my eating bowl made me so!

But, seriously. There was a program on Discovery years ago called Assault on the Male. It was about a substance used in plastics that acted like estrogen in the human body.

So, there it is again. It’s not my fault I whine like a baby. It’s the plastics!

Ohh... that’s a pretty fabric. I bet it’d make a nifty dress.

But you are right. Scary if true.

[HawaiianGecko]

Well that might explain the embossed Tupperware logo on my belly.

[Brucifer]

This explains a lot. On the bad days, I’m pretty sure that those plastics are all that are holding me together. LOL

[VOA]

bump

[manic4organic]

Now I can really tell my wife that my sh#t doesn’t stink because it’s encased in plastic.

[vvpete]

Another example of rampant MSM chemophobia. "Typically, only small traces of BPA turned up, concentrations of a few parts per billion in urine." That is, concentrations so small they are difficult to measure.
This kind of chemophobia is making it difficult to buy chemistry sets that have any chemicals in them, and it's making it difficult for high school labs to get chemicals. How are we going to get chemists if kids can't play with chemicals?
This is a serious problem that people have not thought much about.

[Sgt_Schultze]

Too much plastic takes its toll.

[thegreatbeast]

OMIGOD! The world is going to end (again).

[JustaDumbBlonde]

I have never, and this goes back a couple of decades, liked the idea of using plastic in the microwave oven. I will only use glass, even if I have to take something out of the plastic bowl that was in the fridge and dirty another glass bowl to use in the microwave. Seems as though that practice may have been a good idea, although the traces of BPA they are finding in humans is smaller than minuscule.

[VeniVidiVici]

In the 1967 film classic The Graduate, a businessman corners Benjamin Braddock at a cocktail party and gives him a bit of career advice. "Just one word…plastics."

Actually, I believe Sam Wainwright tells George Baily in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) to invest in plastics. What's this 1967 stuff?

[neverdem]

I have never, and this goes back a couple of decades, liked the idea of using plastic in the microwave oven. I will only use glass, even if I have to take something out of the plastic bowl that was in the fridge and dirty another glass bowl to use in the microwave. Seems as though that practice may have been a good idea, although the traces of BPA they are finding in humans is smaller than minuscule.

If you go to the source, you can link the original article.

Being curious, and seeing enough stories about male bass with ovaries, precocious puberty, childhood obesity and maturity onset diabetes of the young, I decided that endocrinedisruptors and bisphenola would be good as keywords to find some earlier threads.

Headaches Linked To Mobile Phones

After Linking New Strain of Staph to Gay Men, University Scrambles to Clarify

Pregnancy Problems Tied to Caffeine

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[Secret Agent Man]

IF that is true you better avoid margarine. It’s basically a couple molecule switchs from plastic.

[Grimmy]

The Sciencians better knock it off. I’m running out of issues that need a blame surrogate.

What will I do if I run out of “not my faults” and they’re still making stuff useful for excuses?

I’ll need to invent issues! Oh, no. I’m going to need to add another therapist. I still have Weds open.

Well, there goes my “process” day. Thanks a lot Sciencians.

[Marie2]

I think if this was a SERIOUS problem, our life expectancy wouldn’t have kept going up over the past 50 years.

[sheik yerbouty]

Oh, the inanity!

[Does so]

"...because studies in rodents show that BPA can trigger a host of harmful changes, from reproductive havoc..."

If that were true, there'd be Gay-Pride Parades and stuff.

[Thermalseeker]

It’s basically a couple molecule switchs from plastic.

I had a chemistry professor in college that insisted "Baco's " bacon bit substitute was chemically one step away from motor oil.....

[PGalt]

Living in a plastic land...
Somebody give me a hand...

Music to read this thread by...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmBDIj2fbB8&feature=related

Thanks for the ping, neverdem

somebody give me a cheeseburger (actually I think I’ll grab another cup of coffee)

[SunkenCiv]

I wonder what Sara Ann thinks about this.

[neverdem]

Bisphenol A. (CASRN 80-05-7) EPA Integrated Risk Information System

Babies, Bottles, and Bisphenol A: The Story of a Scientist-Mother

Many animal studies focus on the effect of BPA exposure during fetal development, when cells and tissues are especially susceptible to hormonal alterations. Not only does BPA disrupt proper functioning of the placenta during gestation, but it causes many deleterious health effects in offspring exposed in utero [11], including enlarged prostates, malformed urethra [12,13], and a higher risk of prostate cancer in male offspring [14], and genital tract alterations [12,13] and earlier puberty in female offspring [13]. Exposure also affects brain development, causing behavioral differences between males and females to be lost in offspring exposed in the uterus [15].

I couldn't find the Material Safety Data Sheet(MSDS) for BPA, CASRN 80-05-7 without a request for personal information.

[Rennes Templar]

“.. because studies in rodents show that BPA can trigger a host of harmful changes, from reproductive havoc to impaired blood-sugar control and obesity”

A few ppb of BPA won’t affect blood sugar like the nearly 120 pounds of sugar most Americans eat annually.

[PGalt]

Because melamine resin is often used in food packaging and tableware, melamine at ppm level (1 part per million) in food and beverage has been reported due to migration from melamine-containing resins.

from end of Wikipedia entry here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine

Thanks for the 2nd ping, neverdem

[neverdem]

You’re welcome. Thanks for the link.

[TChris]

If it's measurable, it must be poisonous!

*eyeroll*

[raybbr]

Actually, I believe Sam Wainwright tells George Baily in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) to invest in plastics. What's this 1967 stuff?

Dang, you're good!

SAM'S VOICE I have a big deal coming up that's going to make us all rich. George, you remember that night in Martini's bar when you told me you read someplace about making plastics out of soybeans?

GEORGE Huh? Yeah-yeah-yeah . . . soybeans. Yeah.

SAM'S VOICE Well, Dad's snapped up the idea. He's going to build a factory outside of Rochester. How do you like that?

Mary is watching George interestedly. George is very conscious of her, close to him.

GEORGE Rochester? Well, why Rochester?

SAM'S VOICE Well, why not? Can you think of anything better?

GEORGE Oh, I don't know . . . why not right here? You remember that old tool and machinery works? You tell your father he can get that for a song. And all the labor he wants, too. Half the town was thrown out of work when they closed down.

SAM'S VOICE That so? Well, I'll tell him. Hey, that sounds great! Oh, baby, I knew you'd come through. Now, here's the point. Mary, Mary, you're in on this too. Now listen. Have you got any money?

GEORGE Money? Yeah . . . well, a little.

SAM'S VOICE Well, now listen. I want you to put every cent you've got into our stock, you hear? And George, I may have a job for you; that is, unless you're still married to that broken-down Building and Loan. This is the biggest thing since radio, and I'm letting you in on the ground floor. Oh, Mary . . . Mary . . .

[raybbr]

Forgot the pic.

[djf]

can trigger a host of harmful changes, from reproductive havoc ...

Is this what’s causing all the metrosexuals?

[TigersEye]

Here is some interesting info.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

Please add me to your Health/Science ping list.

[diamond6]

I think the one thing that would really frighten me is is if these plastics were made in China.

[Patriotic1]

Ugh.