The chemical widely used in much of America’s food and beverage packaging has a new major health effect a new groundbreaking study confirmed. Published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, the study concluded that levels of bisphenol A, or BPA – a hormone-disrupting chemical – the Food and Drug Administration “deemed safe” can “alter insulin response, a key marker for diabetes,” EcoWatch reported.
The study, which administered BPA to 16 people, found that after testing their insulin in response to glucose, or blood sugar, the chemical altered how glucose affected insulin levels.
“We’re living in an age where type 2 diabetes is rampant. Here is a signal of a new path to explore for what is causing it,” Pete Myers, a co-author of the study and founder, CEO and chief scientist of Environmental Health Sciences, said.
BPA, which lines many canned goods, beverage containers and other food packaging, “leaches” into foods and beverages, which humans consume, leaving 9 out of 10 Americans ingesting the chemical. It’s also found on store receipts – “EWG found BPA in 40 percent of receipts sampled from major U.S. businesses and services, including outlets of McDonald’s, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, Walmart, Safeway and the U.S. Postal Service,” EcoWatch reported.
The study suggests that insulin response might be the key link to BPA exposure and obesity after researchers revealed children with higher levels of body fat were also largely exposed to BPA.
While the chemical has been linked to ADHD in children and breast cancer in lab rats, this is the first study of its kind to link it to insulin. But as independent studies continue to find troubling health effects from the chemical, scientist and researchers are asking the FDA to reevaluate that the chemical is “safe at the current levels occurring in foods.”
“These troubling findings should raise alarms at the Food and Drug Administration and ignite renewed efforts to drastically reduce all Americans’ exposure to BPA,” Alexis Temkin, Ph.D., an EWG toxicologist, said. “It’s appalling that the FDA and other federal agencies continue to say current exposure levels to BPA are safe, and refuse to ban BPA from food and food packaging.”
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