
BPA alternative disrupts normal brain-cell growth, study says - finid
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/bpa-alternative-disrupts-normal-brain-cell-growth-is-tied-to-hyperactivity-study-says/2015/01/12/a9ecc37e-9a7e-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html?hpid=z5
======
iSnow
>A compound is considered safe (by the Food and Drug Administration) until
proven otherwise.

In contrast, in Europe, there is REACH

\-
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Autho...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Authorisation_and_Restriction_of_Chemicals)

\-
[http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/chemicals/reach/index...](http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/chemicals/reach/index_en.htm)

\- [http://echa.europa.eu/regulations/reach/understanding-
reach](http://echa.europa.eu/regulations/reach/understanding-reach))

"REACH places the burden of proof on companies. To comply with the regulation,
companies must identify and manage the risks linked to the substances they
manufacture and market in the EU. They have to demonstrate to ECHA how the
substance can be safely used, and they must communicate the risk management
measures to the users."

Chemical companies in Europe of course are pushing for TTIP, to get rid of
REACH.

~~~
cbd1984
> A compound is considered safe (by the Food and Drug Administration) until
> proven otherwise.

This is simply false. If it were true, getting FDA approval for a new drug
would be trivial: Just release it, and hope nobody dies.

~~~
checker
I know that the FDA regulates prescription medication in that manner, but I
don't think it has the same reach over things like food packaging, water
bottles, dietary supplements, etc.

~~~
cbd1984
The article is wrong:

> Under sections 201(s) and 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
> (the Act), any substance that is intentionally added to food is a food
> additive, that is subject to premarket review and approval by FDA, unless
> the substance is generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having
> been adequately shown to be safe under the conditions of its intended use,
> or unless the use of the substance is otherwise excluded from the definition
> of a food additive.

[http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/GRAS/de...](http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/GRAS/default.htm)

The point is, GRAS does not automatically apply.

Further:

> (d) Substances that under conditions of good manufacturing practice may be
> safely used as components of articles that contact food include the
> following, subject to any prescribed limitations:

> (1) Substances generally recognized as safe in or on food.

> (2) Substances generally recognized as safe for their intended use in food
> packaging.

> (3) Substances used in accordance with a prior sanction or approval.

> (4) Substances permitted for use by regulations in this part and parts 175,
> 176, 177, 178 and § 179.45 of this chapter.

> (5) Food contact substances used in accordance with an effective premarket
> notification for a food contact substance (FCN) submitted under section
> 409(h) of the act. [42 FR 14534, Mar. 15, 1977, as amended at 67 FR 35731,
> May 21, 2002]

[http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/174.5](http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/174.5)

Again, being GRAS is not automatic.

------
goalieca
When everyone started switching away from BPA, I asked one of my chemical
engineering friends about it. He said that they switched from a chemical with
known problems to one that hasn't been studied yet. This is how it always
goes.

------
ewzimm
Exposure to BPA and similar substances from cans and bottles is probably
inconsequential compared to exposure from receipts if you use any kind of hand
sanitizer or lotion. A single exposure can equal hundreds of cans.

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141022143628.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141022143628.htm)

(Fixed the link, thanks)

~~~
thrownaway2424
Good reason to not use hand sanitizer and lotion, then. I have a highly
sophisticated self-repairing, self-lubricating, self-renewing exterior on my
person, and my ancestors needed neither lotions nor aerosols of alcohol in the
millions of years prior to whenever those things suddenly became popular.

Also a good reason to pay cash, which was another long tradition of my people.

~~~
jsankey
Although I agree that our own bodies tend to be pretty awesome and require
less help than many people think, your argument in this case is a little
shaky. We live in a very different environment to our ancestors and expose our
skin to all sorts of things that they never could have. Even ignoring all the
new compounds we interact with daily, just moving ourselves around the planet
(to areas with different sun exposure, as a key example) can have a big impact
on our health.

~~~
thrownaway2424
You won't see me hewing to some paleo diet or otherwise worshipping my bark-
eating forebears. But I think people do themselves a disservice with all the
crud they put in their skin. Some of these things are required only because of
the previous thing applied to their skin. Hand washing is nice and I recommend
it but equally important (in terms of disease transmission) are the discipline
to not pick your nose and rub your eyes. Basic stuff.

~~~
jahmed
Agreed, I'm a happy modern human that isn't particularly worried about
potential harms from chemicals or GMOs. I do though use baking soda and
vinegar for my hair and its so much better than using shampoo and conditioner.
Aggressively stripping oil from your hair and then putting it back didn't make
sense once I learned about it.

I'm curious about this [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/magazine/my-no-soap-
no-sha...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/magazine/my-no-soap-no-shampoo-
bacteria-rich-hygiene-experiment.html?_r=0) but not nearly brave enough.

~~~
ccozan
I actually did this experiment. I had the chance to be alone for 3 months so I
accepted the challenge.

It actually worked. I used only and only water to wash. In the beginning hot,
then slowly working to a quite cold shower. That helped out too.

The effect? My hair is since then never better. I have no more dandruff, no
rash or other headskin condition.

The body took it very well. Using only water and a turkish rubbing cloth. I
didn't smell. I even asked a few colleagues ( female too ) to tell me if they
noticed something about me, and there was nothing out of the ordinary. My
armpits were sweating but no unpleasant smell would be produced. Some women
found me even more attractive ;), but this might be subjective.

Reason for the lack of smell is most probably the natural bacteria that eat
all of my body output ( sweat, dead skin, etc ). The cold shower was keeping
this bacteria alive, since hot water has some effect ( dilutuing fat and
killing some of them ).

In the end, was a positive experiment. I stopp it after this 3 months, due to
home arrival of my significant other :).

~~~
danneu
I tried it too.

Vinegar in my hair just made it a greasy mess that now smelled like vinegar,
which is pretty how you smell when you don't shower to begin with.

Baking soda was necessary but didn't put a dent in the stench of vinegar.

After a month, I was happy to lather my body with shampoo and other commercial
chemicals.

~~~
ccozan
Mind you, I using _only_ water and nothing else.

------
jrapdx3
Maybe I missed it, but it should be mentioned that there are many variations
of bisphenol:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol)

Also worth noting that BPS was reported >10 years ago as producing endocrine
disruption similar to BPA. I think it likely other bisphenol variants would do
the same.

Part of the problem is not only the use of BP(A|S|.+) as plasticizers but also
BP_ is a constituent of polycarbonates, epoxies and other industrially
important materials.

The amount of free BP_ in a properly prepared and cured product is likely
quite small, but heating, UV exposure, etc., can hasten decomposition or
release of BP_. Used as plasticizer BP_ would be more easily transferred and
ingested.

As others have said, the safest "plastic" containers are the low surface
energy thermoplastics, polyethylene or polypropylene. They aren't pretty and
clear like polycarbonate, but they are a whole lot less risky.

------
IgorPartola
For adults, go get yourself a Hyrdro Flask. It's a double-walled (thermos-
style) food grade stainless steel bottle. It comes with a 100 year warranty,
and after your grandkids are done playing with it, it's fully recyclable.
There are several products like this on the market, but I am a happy Hydro
Flask owner/user.

Aluminum bottles are a non-starter: aluminum is toxic to humans, and has to be
coated to not leak into your food. Often times there's a plastic liner to
prevent the aluminum from coming into contact with your food/drink.

Some steel bottles are crap: they actually do stain/rust, and being non-
transparent this can be hard to spot.

Glass bottles are nice, but obviously more breakable/dangerous than metal.

Personally, I don't trust any plastic bottles: not Nalgene not any other kind.
Had a Nalgene bottle once; after it took on a stale water odor, I could not
get it out with anything. This article particular finding is far from the last
one in terms of which plastics do what to the organism.

For baby bottles... I guess the search is on for the next best type of bottle.

~~~
refurb
_aluminum is toxic to humans, and has to be coated to not leak into your
food._

Aluminum is not toxic when it comes to the levels that might end up in your
food. Aluminum hydroxide is an FDA approved antacid.

Aluminum cans are coated not to keep the aluminum out of your food, it's to
keep acidic food from corroding the aluminum.

~~~
mc32
I think you're right, people in third world countries use lots of aluminum in
their cookware (Thailand, while not being third world) is a good example of a
place which uses it a lot in cookery.

Just don't use aluminum citrus squeezers or cook your tomato sauce in aluminum
pots (as their useful lifetimes will suffer, and the food might take on a
weird taste.)

It would also seem that most of the danger from aluminum cookery, where there
is such, comes from impurities in the recycled aluminum (lead, and other
hazardous metals).

~~~
dietrichepp
We use a lot of aluminum cookware in the US, too. Just take a look inside
restaurant kitchens.

~~~
mc32
That's true, but aluminum cookware is not as pervasive as it is in 3rd world
countries, also, I'm willing to bet, the aluminum in US cookware does not have
as much in terms of impurities --not guarantees on cheap imported cookware
though.

~~~
jff
But the assertion was that aluminum itself is toxic, so the presence of
impurities is irrelevant.

------
teuobk
On an intuitive level, it isn't surprising that a chemical so similar to BPA
that it could be an "easy" substitute would in fact also share similar harmful
effects.

There are early rumblings (e.g.
[http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2009/090415.htm](http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2009/090415.htm)
) that there might be something similar going on with the replacement of
trans-fats with palm oil. Palm oil behaves similarly to trans-fats, which
makes it attractive to industry, but then it isn't too surprising that those
same similarities might also make it similarly unhealthy.

~~~
ekianjo
> On an intuitive level, it isn't surprising that a chemical so similar to BPA
> that it could be an "easy" substitute would in fact also share similar
> harmful effects.

Don't rely on intuition for toxicology. If there's one field where there's a
strong lack of Science (and I mean predictive Science), that's this one. There
are tons of chemical compounds that have no severe tox effects, but add a
couple of carbons in the chain and you can get toxicity. Or, take chirality
for example. The same exact chemical formula, but the spatial arrangement
being the mirror of each other's. This caused major issues back in the 20th
century, when some drugs were synthesized without chiral specificity, and led
to one chiral version being harmless and effective to improve a certain
condition, and the other chiral version attacking the central nervous system.

No, just don't rely on intuition there.

~~~
JadeNB
> There are tons of chemical compounds that have no severe tox effects, but
> add a couple of carbons in the chain and you can get toxicity.

Your point not to rely on intuition is a good one, but I think that's not
quite what the GP was doing. That is, I think the claim wasn't that a
_chemically_ similar compound should behave similarly, but rather that a
_behaviourally_ similar (in some ways) compound should behave similarly (in
other ways)—stated which way it is almost a tautology, no?

------
simplexion
As bad as the original? Can someone link to evidence of the dangers of people
exposed to BPAs through plastics?

My understanding is that the whole BPA craziness is the same as the Phthalates
nonsense. The problem is if you want to avoid these things, make sure you
don't get sick and end up in hospital because then you will be in contact with
these like crazy.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
No it is not nonsense. BPA is a kniwn endocrine disrupting chemical. Endocrine
disruption is when a chemical interferes with many of the hormones in your
body. Hormones which regulate cell growth, differentiation ajd overall cell
behavior.

Disruption of these can have severe consequences.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25569640](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25569640)

~~~
simplexion
I am aware of endochrine disruptors causing problems, but is there evidence of
the average level of BPA exposure causing negative effects to be concerned
about. I can't find any studies that show this.

------
fcbrooklyn
"One of the most significant findings is that low doses can be more harmful
than larger ones."

Wait, what? This jumped out at me, but the article doesn't really elaborate on
the surprising claim.

------
sowhatquestion
Chemists of HN: Why does this keep happening? Why is BPA or something close to
it seemingly required to manufacture plastics? Or to put it another way, why
has it been so difficult to come up with an alternative that's distinct enough
to avoid BPA's effects on the human body?

~~~
refurb
Because a lot of plastics don't have the desirable physical properties unless
you add plasticizer.

------
ZoFreX
I don't understand why so many people on HN are worried about BPS or BPA. So
far studies have shown that it has detrimental effects on the developing brain
(in extremely limited animal trials!). Presumably everyone on here is not an
infant and their brain has developed... so why are you buying BPA/BPS free
bottles?

~~~
iSnow
Because I am a father?

~~~
danielweber
From Freakonomics:

 _No one is more susceptible to an expert’s fearmongering than a parent. Fear
is in fact a major component of the act of parenting. A parent, after all, is
the steward of another creature’s life, a creature who in the beginning is
more helpless than the newborn of nearly any other species. This leads a lot
of parents to spend a lot of their parenting energy simply being scared._

 _The problem is that they are often scared of the wrong things. It’s not
their fault, really. Separating facts from rumors is always hard work,
especially for a busy parent. And the white noise generated by the experts —
to say nothing of the pressure exerted by fellow parents — is so overwhelming
that they can barely think for themselves. The facts they do manage to glean
have usually been varnished or exaggerated or otherwise taken out of context
to serve an agenda that isn’t their own._

~~~
Someone1234
That's great and all until you consider that all parents are doing here is
managing their buying decisions, so even the "threat" is low, so is the
solution.

I'm pretty sure that quote was aimed at parents worried about e.g. third party
kidnappings (which are insanely rare). Or who consider inoculations to be
"dangerous" (without examining the danger of the other side).

Switching from one type of bottle to another may do "nothing" in the medium to
long term, but it also costs the parent an inconsequential amount. As long as
you aren't exchanging one somewhat unsafe bottle for a much more unsafe bottle
(e.g. bottles made of lead) you're likely fine or breaking even.

------
jared314
Links to the actual study:

Abstract:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/07/1417731112.abst...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/07/1417731112.abstract)

Text:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/07/1417731112.full...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/07/1417731112.full.pdf+html)

Supporting Information:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2015/01/07/1417731112.DCSu...](http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2015/01/07/1417731112.DCSupplemental/pnas.201417731SI.pdf)

------
jhealy
Here's a discussion of these results by an Australian lecturer in
Pharmacology: [https://theconversation.com/a-fishy-story-zebra-fish-
bisphen...](https://theconversation.com/a-fishy-story-zebra-fish-bisphenol-a-
and-hyperactivity-36224)

He covers a few points, but here's a key one:

> The concentrations of BPA in this study, while low, are still much higher
> than humans would be exposed to. It is a bit difficult to relate the
> exposures of the fish to those of humans, as humans typically do not swim
> immersed in solutions of BPA day in and day out, but let us look at it from
> a variety of perspectives.

------
ra
So what is the safest drink bottle to use?

I have a stainless steel one, but it has some sort of lining.

~~~
larrywright
I'll second the vote for Klean Kanteen - I love mine. Also worth looking at is
LifeFactory. They have glass bottles with silicon sleeves, that are quite
sturdy. I've dropped mine a number of times and it hasn't broken.

They also make baby bottles and food storage containers, if that's something
you need.

~~~
cdr
LifeFactory is just normal soda-lime glass, AFAIK. They can shatter from drops
of a couple feet.

~~~
larrywright
They _can_ , but in my experience, they don't. I'm not sure if it's the
silicon sleeve around it, or what, but I've dropped mine a number of times and
it's been fine.

------
UnoriginalGuy
Can I ask a perhaps very ignorant question:

We have a kid on the way, and now that BPA and BPA free are considered
estrogen leaking, what are we meant to buy? However it should be noted that
the kid is meant to be a girl, so for girls is this a non-concern since
obviously estrogen won't be unusual within their bodies.

~~~
trentlott
Glass. It's expensive and fragile, but good old silicon oxide is as inert as
you can ask for.

Extra estrogen in a female baby is absolutely a concern.

I was part of an investigation that dosed nursing rats with BPA and
investigated the effect on female offspring. I left for graduate school in
polymer chemistry, but you can read the results here:
[http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/pr401027q](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/pr401027q)

It's no blockbuster paper, but the whole of the evidence gathered suggests you
shouldn't expose your baby to BPA just because it's female.

There's also a link between post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy (older
women taking estrogen after their body ceases production) and breast/uterine
cancer.

~~~
chockablock
Glass is not that fragile. We've been using tempered glass bottles (the fancy
lifefactory ones with a silicone sleeve) for more than a year and have yet to
break one despite many drops onto floor, pavement, etc. Cost is a little
higher than plastic, but absolutely down in the noise when looking at total
costs of having a kid.

I think we spent ~$150 on bottles, nipples, and tops; Including lids for these
bottles to covert them into a sippy cup. There are cheaper tempered glass
options available. Glass also doesn't age like plastic--our stuff has many
more years of useful life in it.

------
blergh123
Does anyone know what the plastic lids of coffee cups are made from? I drink
out of those things all the time :(

------
ratsmack
Every "tin" can I have opened, for as long as I can remember, has a plastic
coating inside. I've always wondered what material is being used for this
coating. Plastic of one kind or another seems to be inescapable.

~~~
megablast
If a tin can has a dent in it, they are not supposed to use it. Always check
at the supermarket before you buy them as well.

~~~
stephentmcm
Source? This sounds very urban legend. Most stores won't sell it as 'damaged
stock' but they also reject many other products based entirely on external
appearance regardless of whether they are fit for purpose or not.

~~~
dghughes
Not urban legend more like common sense, botulism is possible if the can seal
is broken.

Source? Just google it
[http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/77ffde83-dc51-4fdf-...](http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/77ffde83-dc51-4fdf-93be-048110fe47d6/Shelf_Stable_Food_Safety.pdf?MOD=AJPERES)

------
userbinator
Possible easy DIY fix: line your bottles with a clean plastic bag, the clear
transparent type. That will almost certainly be polyethylene, which doesn't
contain any plasticizers like BPA or BPS.

~~~
Someone1234
If it is that easy then why aren't bottles made from polyethylene?

~~~
sp332
Some are. Any bottles with a recycling number 2 (HDPE) or 4 (LDPE) are made of
polyethylene. Edit: or 1 (PETE).

------
jostmey
In case you haven't noticed, we have surrounded ourselves with chemicals that
our bodies never evolved to deal with, and the list is growing. And as a
society we are still dealing with chemicals known to be dangerous. Take
asbestos as an example. Everyone knows it is bad, and yet you can still find
in the walls of old school buildings, houses, and places of work. Worse, the
ban on asbestos was lifted in the USA allowing for materials to contain up to
1% of it.

Someday we as a society will hopefully wake up to the dangers we put ourselves
through. I continually find it amazing that human lifespan has gone up, not
down.

~~~
jacobolus
> _I continually find it amazing that human lifespan has gone up, not down._

I suspect you’ve never spent time in rural peasant villages. Many rural
peasants (still today, but even more in the past) eat a simple and often
poorly balanced diet punctuated by occasional periods of near starvation, do
demanding physical labor from an early age until their bodies break down,
catch all sorts of diseases that suburban office workers are never exposed to,
sometimes get serious bacterial infections when they suffer any kind of
laceration, have vastly inferior treatments for pretty much every medical
condition, even something simple like a broken ankle used to be permanently
crippling, etc., and you find it "amazing" that life expectancy has improved?

If you want to talk about exposure to various carcinogenic compounds, any
family who cooks on a wood fire in an open hearth in the middle of their house
is breathing more smoke than all but the heaviest of cigarette smokers, worse
than the worst air pollution Beijing has to offer.

~~~
xeromal
lol. Salt Lake City has some of the worst smog I've ever lived in out of
Chicago, LA and Atlanta. I remember reading an article about wood burning
stoves causing equal pollution to all the vehicles in the entire valley.

[http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56427415-78/utah-
pollution...](http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56427415-78/utah-pollution-
winter-wood.html.csp)

------
spuiszis
“A lot of the alternative chemicals have not been adequately tested because
they don’t have to be,” said lead author Deborah Kurrasch. “A compound is
considered safe (by the Food and Drug Administration) until proven otherwise.”

I'm no healthcare policy expert but this sounds like the FDA has it backwards.

~~~
refurb
_“A compound is considered safe (by the Food and Drug Administration) until
proven otherwise.”_

That's a ridiculously untrue statement. Try and add a chemical with unknown
safety to a food product/cosmetic/medical device and see how long it takes the
FDA to shut you down.

The FDA does have GRAS designation (generally recognized as safe) for many
chemicals, but that is based on a large body of evidence that has demonstrated
no (or manageable) safety concerns.

------
nirai
We are totally fucked.

------
hiou
Can we change this title to something closer to the original title of the
article? The current title is inflammatory and will likely just bring out all
the conspiracy nuts.

"BPA alternative disrupts normal brain-cell growth, is tied to hyperactivity,
study says"

------
curiously
It seems like it's impossible to avoid BPA, plastic is EVERYWHERE.

I no longer use coffee machine because it has plastic parts and it has a
rather plastic taste. I now use dripping method without any plastic.

I have become more and more vigilant about plastic in consumables. Would love
to have a comprehensive list of items to replace at home.

~~~
_delirium
Fwiw, BPA isn't in most plastics, generally only in polycarbonates, plus some
epoxy linings. Most plastic bottles, for example, are made of various kinds of
polyethylene instead. A useful (but not exact) rule of thumb is that almost
all BPA-containing plastics have resin code 7 (Other); plastics with codes 1-6
typically don't have BPA.

~~~
curiously
I don't know if I can trust it

------
aaron695
The nutters seem out on mass today.....

~~~
finid
You mean that people who care about their health are "nutters"?

Count me in. I am a nutter!

