Bisphenol A May Linger in Body

By Daniel J. DeNoon
Study Shows More Than Expected Amounts of BPA May Accumulate in Americans' Bodies

Jan. 28, 2009 -- The plastics chemical bisphenol A (BPA) doesn't leave the body as easily as previously thought, a new study suggests.

BPA is everywhere: in PVC pipe, in polycarbonate drink containers, in the plastic that lines food and soft-drink cans, and even in dental sealants. It's also in our bodies. Virtually everyone has detectable levels of BPA in his or her body.

Although Canada last October banned BPA from plastic baby bottles, the U.S. FDA still considers it safe. The U.S. National Toxicology Program, however, notes "concerns" over BPA safety. Not taking any chances, several baby-bottle makers have stopped using BPA in their products.

Based on limited evidence, most researchers have assumed that most of our BPA exposure comes from food, and that the body gets rid of each BPA dose within 24 hours.

Now there's evidence that BPA might be in our water as well as in our food, and that it lingers in our fat tissues. If confirmed -- and the current findings are very preliminary -- it could mean BPA is a bigger problem than thought.

University of Rochester researcher Richard Stahlhut, MD, MPH, analyzed data on 1,469 U.S. adults from the CDC's huge 2003-2004 NHANES study. That study gave fasting people one-time BPA tests, and also collected extensive dietary data.

Stahlhut compared people's BPA levels to how long it had been since their last meal. Since virtually all BPA is supposed to come from food, and BPA is supposed to have a short half-life, he expected that average BPA levels would dwindle in people who fasted longer than that.

"After 10 to 15 hours of fasting, there shouldn't be anybody with any detectable levels of BPA," Stahlhut tells WebMD. "But it just hangs there like the London fog. You do see a subtle downward trend, but what you don't see is it falling off the map. And by 24 hours it's still there."

What's going on? The people in the NHANES study really fasted -- CDC researchers made sure of that. But they were allowed to drink water, black coffee, and diet soda.

The BPA could have come from the diet soda or other things the CDC researchers couldn't control, points out University of Miami medical toxicologist John Cienki, MD. Cienki, who was not involved in the Stahlhut or NHANES studies, says he worries about BPA. But he warns that there are too many unknowns in the NHANES data to draw any definite conclusions.

"I think we are using data here that was not designed to be used this way," Cienki cautions. "Yes, we would anticipate a greater BPA excretion if people were fasting -- if they had not continued to ingest BPA. But this study did not control for consumption of or exposure to BPA."

Stahlhut fully agrees. However, he notes that the BPA could have come from another source: tap water. Surprisingly few BPA tests have been done on tap water. And those tests did not look for chlorinated BPA, which would be the form of BPA leached from PVC pipes into municipal tap water.

Or maybe, Stahlhut says, not all the BPA was being ingested. Maybe a lot of it really lingers in fat tissues, as some studies suggest. And far from being a stored harmlessly, BPA may be a bad actor in human fat.

A 2008 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that people with higher urinary BPA levels have more medical disorders. Another intriguing study from 2008 showed that BPA -- at normal levels of exposure -- disrupts a hormone involved in insulin sensitivity and diabetes. And a 2007 study showed that obese people are much more likely to suffer insulin resistance if they have high fat levels of organic pollutants.

"Imagine if what we think is caused by obesity is actually caused by persistent organics in the fat of obese people," Stahlhut says. "If they don't have the organics, they don't have the diabetes. That would be huge."

But first things first. Stahlhut agrees with Cienki that his study is not grounds for any kind of regulatory action. He calls for rigidly controlled experiments to find out what happens to people after long-term exposure to BPA. He also urges studies measuring BPA in human fat tissues. And he thinks it's urgent to search for new, potentially important sources of BPA exposure.

Stahlhut and colleagues report their findings in the Jan. 28 online issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

source: webmd.com

Best 7 Day Cleansing Diet Plan

It’s claimed that this Healthy Diet Plan takes nine kilograms in two weeks, , if strictly held. Alcohol is strictly prohibited, drink coffee without sugar a salad spiced with lemon. If you don’t see quantities refer you may eat it as much as you want it. Cleansing Diet leads to changes in the exchange of substances in the body that should guarantee that in the next period, if you eat normally or not, accrue new kilograms.

B= Breakfast - L= Lunch - D= Dinner

1.Day
B: coffee without suger
L: 2 boiled eggs, spinach (little solt)
D: 1 large stack (3 small beffs’s grilling)
lettuce and raw celery

DRUGSTORE: - Weight Loss

2.Day
B: black coffee without suger with 1 pastry
L: 1 large stack, green salad and fruit
according to choice
D: boiled ham

3.Day
B: black coffee without sugar and biscuits
L: 2 boiled eggs, lettuce, tomato
D: cooked ham, green salad (with a little lemon)

4.Day
B: black coffee without sugar and biscuits
L: 1 boiled egg, raw carrots, Swiss cheese
D fruit and natural yogurt

5.Day
B: carrots with lemon and black coffee
L: boiled fish and tomato
D: 1 stack roasted, green salad

6.Day
B: black coffee and biscuits
L: chicken roasted
D: 2 boiled eggs and carrots (bound)

7.Day
B: tea with lemon
L: stack grilling, fruit according to choice
D: to choice, whatever you want

From Day 8 this Healthy diet begins again and lasts one more week. After that its allowed to eat Normaly.

Source: bestdietsplans.com

What diets and supplements fight prostate cancer?

Asked by Edward Siguel, Rockville, Maryland
What are the best diets and supplements to prevent and treat prostate cancer? What about tomatoes? Or vitamin E? Or antioxidants?
I've heard arsenic may be effective, but some side effects are frequently undesirable.


Expert Answer:
Conditions Expert
Dr Otis Brawley
Chief Medical Officer,
American Cancer Society

There is no definite non-drug prostate cancer preventative. Epidemiologic studies suggest that men who have a diet high in fruits, vegetables, and soy products and low in fat (especially animal fat) may have a lower risk. Also men with diets high in tomato products seem to have a lower rate of prostate cancer. This was especially true of tomato products cooked in olive oil such as tomato sauces. There is growing interest in Vitamin D as a possible correlate with prostate cancer prevention.

These are all epidemiologic correlations. I caution that there have been epidemiologic correlations that when the identified behavior was tested in a controlled study, the behavior did not lower risk. For example studies suggested a correlation between Vitamin E and Selenium and reduced risk of prostate cancer. These hypotheses were tested in a study in which 32,000 men were randomized to a daily selenium pill versus placebo and 32,000 men were randomized to a daily vitamin E pill versus placebo for about five to six years. The men getting selenium and vitamin did not have a lower rate of prostate cancer compared to those getting the placebo and there was concern that selenium might be increasing risk of diabetes and vitamin E might actually be correlated with an increased risk of prostate cancer. The lesson here is be careful adopting things that sound good and have not been tested scientifically.

Some have advocated supplements advertised to promote prostate health and suggested they prevent prostate cancer. It almost always says in the small print that these supplements have not been tested. One should be careful.

The drug finasteride, marketed as Proscar by Merck, has been FDA approved as a medical treatment for benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH. BPH is a common benign growth of the prostate that makes it difficult to urinate. The drug shrinks the prostate and improves urinary flow symptoms. In a large long term randomized study of finasteride and placebo, it was found that finasteride reduced the risk of prostate cancer by more than 25%. Those who were diagnosed with prostate cancer however had a higher proportion of high grade more aggressive prostate cancers. It has sense been shown that finasteride helps screening find small prostate cancers not that it causes high grade prostate cancers.

There are lots of questions about the benefits, risks and accuracy of prostate cancer screening so studies with finasteride continue.

I know of no data on arsenic and caution that it is a very dangerous compound.