Ah, am oldie but a goodie thread resurrected. The most up to date research, in humans, shows several interesting things.

a) BPA is excreted, so it is untruthful to say it stays in the body forever.
b) Young men, younger folks in general, and folks with higher waist circumferences had the highest excretion rates, but they also had the hgihest BPA exposure.
c) In men, but not women, BPA exposure raised testosterone levels. Might be a good thing to know if you're trying to pack on some muscle and lean up, might be a bad thing if you are at risk of prostrate cancer.
d) Those with the highest BPA exposure had an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. Probably not surprising given these were also the most obese folks.

My guess: BPA levels are a marker for eating and drinking lots of calorie dense (and often chemically laden) stuff from cans, which leads to obesity, heart disease and diabetes. BPA is not necessarily causing these diseases, but is just along for the ride as a marker of poor dietary choices.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/300/11/1303/JOC80072F1

From article #1:
"Extraordinarily high levels of BPA were found on two-fifths of the paper receipts tested recently by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C.

"In some cases, the amount of BPA on a given receipt was 1,000 times the levels found in a can of food.

"Receipts were collected from ATM's, grocery stores, fast food restaurants, gas stations and the like. "Wipe tests" showed that the coating of BPA of paper receipts would likely stick to the skin of anyone who handled them."

From article #2:
"Two of the new studies also showed that the BPA coating easily rubs off onto fingers. And one found evidence that BPA from receipts may penetrate skin.

"... based on 10 receipts recently collected in the Boston area. Six contained 1.09 to 1.70 percent BPA by mass. Another two contained 0.30 to 0.83 percent BPA; the final pair had no measurable amounts. Their findings appear online in Green Chemistry Letters and Reviews.

"A Swiss study published online July 11 in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry assayed 13 European sales receipts. Eleven contained BPA in quantities ranging from 0.8 to 1.7 percent of the paper’s mass.

"And that BPA rubbed off easily, notes study coauthor Koni Grob, an analytical chemist with the Official Food Control Authority of the Canton of Zurich. Just holding receipt paper deposited substantial BPA onto dry fingers. Wet fingers picked up 10 times as much.

"When fingers are dry, he explains, BPA probably enters fatty or waxy constituents of the skin. The ironic result: “you get more intimate contact” than when wet fingers disintegrate a paper’s fibers and carry them to — but not necessarily into — skin. Indeed, two hours after dry fingers held a receipt, Grob reports, nearly 30 percent of the transferred BPA “was no longer extractable — could not be washed off.”

"“The shocking thing,” he says, “is what happened when I applied a bit of BPA onto my fingers with ethanol [alcohol]. After two hours it had disappeared. Totally.” The BPA likely penetrated deeply into the skin, he says, perhaps as far as the bloodstream."



Seems like things are not quite as simple as once thought.

Edited by greg23 on 10/03/2010 14:43:37 MDT.