Drinking From Plastic Bottles Shown to Increase Presence of Toxic BPA

If you are like millions of Americans who sip water or other liquids from those hard, plastic polycarbonate bottles, you are at increased risk of having higher levels of the toxic chemical additive BPA found in your urine, Harvard University medical researchers say.

BPA, also called bisphenol A, is added to clear, hard plastic baby bottles, sippy cups, and other beverage containers to make them more shatterproof. At higher levels in our bodies, the chemical has been shown to cause severe developmental problems in developing children and diabetes and cardiovascular disease in adults.

Polycarbonate bottles can be identified by the recycling number “7.”

Recently, new limits have been placed on the use of the chemical in children’s products, but BPA still is used to make those common plastic water bottles and to line the insides of soda cans and other beverage and food containers.

While more than 100 scientific studies have found that BPA can be hazardous to our health, a new Harvard Medical School study finds that the chemical seeps from polycarbonate bottles into beverages. When consumed, those beverages can raise the levels of BPA found in the urine. It is the first such finding of increased BPA in urine from drinking liquids from polycarbonate bottles.

According to researchers, “drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds.”When bottles containing BPA are heated, such as is the case with many parents feeding formula to newborns and infants, “we would expect the levels to be considerably higher,” the Harvard researchers said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration still considers BPA safe when it is used at currently approved levels. Other world health officials have banned the chemical from certain products.

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