Thom Hartmann: Geeky Science - Is BPA changing the Gene Code?

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 02:31 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QqLsvTcG40   Posted on YouTube: September 02, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 101   Posted on DU: September 02, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 1008

 
Geeky Science is my opportunity to share with you some of the week's most bewildering, interesting, or weird science news. Bisphenol A or BPA is a chemical that they body reacts to as if it were a synthetic estrogen. It's commonly used in polycarbonate plastic and resin-lined food and beverage containers here in the United States, where it's still legal - it's been outlawed in Europe. It can be found here in almost anything packaged in flexible soft plastic or lined with plastic - from baby bottles to lunch containers and even soda cans and energy drinks. And it doesn't just change your body the way hormones do - like causing girls to reach puberty early as we've seen here in America over the past thirty years. It actually changes our genetic code. Exposure of lab animals and cell models to doses of BPA even below the recommended tolerable daily intake have been shown to alter specific estrogen-responsive genes. In fact - rats exposed to BPA in test labs developed breast and testicular cancer, diabetes and hyperactivity. It's effects on humans are not entirely known and the manufacturers of BPA and their lobbyists continue to claim that it is safe. But a new study shows pretty solidly that BPA can trigger hormone-responsive gene changes in people. An international research team collected blood and urine from 96 male subjects. As urinary markers of BPA exposure rose, the likelihood that estrogen-responsive genes were activated in the blood also increased. And the doses of BPA that elicited these changes was about what the general population is exposed to in their daily use of products made with BPA. The authors of the study have concluded that BPA is active in humans and that it can be linked biologically to hormone signaling and related disorders in humans and that includes things like diabetes, thyroid disease and obesity. So you might want to rethink that next soda - it was probably made by passing through plastic tubes softened with BPAs, and is therefore packing a double whammy of a health threat.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[Voice for Peace]

1. thanks thom for your work

much appreciated

[stockholmer]

2. yes!, good for you Mr Hartmann, speaking truth to power

[cosmicaug]

3. BPA is not "changing the gene code"

The title is quite misleading (I don't think it's deliberate and it probably just represents a misunderstanding of whoever wrote that). I thought it would be about some epigenetic finding. Instead, what apparently was found, if that research is correct, is that BPA does exactly what folk have been concerned about: changing gene expression levels of genes which are responsive to estrogen. Such statements come from gene expression studies which are carried out using a "gene chip" and which seem to be very popular these days (find some condition that interests you, look at gene expressions with and without the condition, see what genes are up-regulated and which are down-regulated, get a paper out of it).

The news item appears to have come from Science News at http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/333809/title/News_in_Brief_Earth_%2B_Environment . It references the journal Environmental Health Perspectives (see http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/ ) but there I hit a dead end and was unable to find the relevant news release because the Science News blurb does not give enough information for me to track it down.

[sce56]

4. Just keep drinking water & sodas from those plastic bottles so you too can evolve er mutate

Damm I like the Fuze Slender drinks I wonder if they have BPA? Being a Type II Diabetic sucks!