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Harvard study finds exposure to BPA has harmful health effects

In a May, 2009 study, the Harvard School of Public Health found that BPA, the chemical used to make plastics (baby bottles, drinking bottles, etc.) can leach into humans.

“We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds. If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher. This would be of concern since infants may be particularly susceptible to BPA’s endocrine-disrupting potential,” said Karin B. Michels, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH and Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study.

Exposure to BPA, used in the manufacture of polycarbonate and other plastics, has been shown to interfere with reproductive development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans. The study is the first to show that drinking from polycarbonate bottles increased the level of urinary BPA, and thus suggests that drinking containers made with BPA release the chemical into the liquid that people drink in sufficient amounts to increase the level of BPA excreted in human urine.

Read the full article:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2009-releases/bpa-chemical-plastics-leach-polycarbonate-drinking-bottles-humans.html

 

By Donna MacMullin

Creative Communications, Graphic Design, Communications, Blogging, Copywriting, Content Management

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