Is the world becoming a scary place to live considering the plethora of risks and dangers humans face to day in their eternal search for more pleasure and convenience? If all the contradicting, often confusing reports that come in their way, are taken at their face value, there appears to be a sense of inevitability that future is going to be more and more insecure for the denizens though not many realize the lurking dangers ahead. If the food industry, the retail industry, government and the consumer community do not pull up their socks, world is hurtling towards a catastrophe of gigantic dimension. For example obesity is making a nation like America present a grotesque picture of its population as more than 30% of them are obese by definition and consumers have to bear a lot of responsibility for this undesirable transformation. But the contribution by the industry is also not too small to be ignored. From marketing junk foods, loaded heavily with "empty" calories to using thousands of chemicals in the food during processing the industry plays a "dirty" role in seducing the citizens to the portfolio of products it offers. Bis-Phenol A, an additive in many plastic packaging materials and lining materials was ubiquitous by its presence in the blood and urine of more than 90% of the population in the US, is now discovered to be an obesogen causing weight increase in many people, even under normal food consumption protocol. Here is a take on this issue.
"One of the most common of these obesogens, as they have become known, is bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, the ubiquitous chemical found in everything from the lining of cans to the paper that most receipts are printed on. Research suggest that it's in the urine of upwards of 90 percent of Americans—evidently at levels high enough to cause harm. According to University of Missouri biologist and notorious BPA researcher Frederick vom Saal, it also affects how the body deals with fat. "BPA reduces the number of fat cells but programs them to incorporate more fat, so there are fewer but very large fat cells, vom Saal recently told Environmental Health Perspectives. "BPA exposure is producing in animals the kind of outcomes that we see in humans born light at birth: an increase in abdominal fat and glucose intolerance." A study released last week by University of California-Irvine researchers further implicates BPA in the obesity problem—and raises even greater suspicion about a related compound called bisphenol A Diglycidyl ether, a combination of of BPA and something called epichlorohydrin, this World Health Organization report explains. It's through BADGE that BPA makes it into in food-can linings. UC-Irvine biologist Bruce Blumberg, who co-authored the study, explained to me in an email that the BPA that ends up in our food through can linings gets there when BADGE breaks down into its components. Blumberg and his team found, though, that BADGE in its whole state is an even more potent obesogen than BPA—and its effects are independent of BPA. Both BADGE and BPA can trigger preadipocytes—which are known as "pre-fat cells" because they can either lie dormant, copy themselves, or turn into fat—to become fat cells. The Cal-Irvine researchers tested the effects BADGE and BPA have on stem cells, our bodies' cellular building blocks that can differentiate into the whole variety of human cells. They found that while BADGE can turn stem cells into fat cells at tiny doses, BPA doesn't have that effect at all. The result surprised Blumberg and his team, because they went into the study assuming that BADGE wasn't an obesogen. How small are the doses at which BADGE does its dirty work? Blumberg told me that the stuff can induce stem cells to become fat cells at levels as low as 3 parts per billion. That's way, way below the level the FDA has declared the "no observed adverse effect level" for BADGE, which is 15 parts per million, Blumberg wrote in an email".
The fact that BPA and BADGE even at a level, as low as 3 parts billion can induce fat synthesis in fat cells will have far reaching implications. The FDA insistence that BPA does not pose any danger to consumers, probably may need a revisit immediately in the light of the above findings. Polycarbonate feeding bottles, extensively being used till recently and continued use of bottles made from polycarbonate base for packing drinking water have been implicated as important sources of BPA and the quick action response by the industry in voluntarily stopping the use of these containers is indeed welcome. Industry was successful in finding suitable replacements for them. Same is true with can linings, another important source of BPA with the industry developing suitable replacements. As of now it is very difficult to come to any conclusion whether BPA really poses any grave danger to consumer health in the light of concerted action by the packaging industry and the food processing sector in withdrawing these risky material for food contact application. The stand of FDA that BPA does not pose any health risk needs will have to be reconsidered in the light of above findings. If more than 65% of Americans are overweight as per the current yardsticks and if more than 90% of them show significant levels of BPA in the blood and urine, food alone might not be wholly responsible for the situation and chemicals like BPA and other obesogens may have to shoulder some blame too.
V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com
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