Sunday, July 12, 2009

Health Risks of Bisphenol A

Bisphenol A - Plastics
Researchers from the University of Cincinnati led by Scott Belcher, PhD, have recently conducted a study about the effects of BPA (bisphenol A) to the human heart, especially to that of a woman. The team has experimented female rats and mice, exposing their hearts to BPA. The study made the researchers conclude that plastics containing BPA are most harmful to women’s health.

BPA or bishpenol A is a chemical used in making hard plastics and containers. Food product containers are usually made of this. This chemical has already been linked to have caused diabetes, breast cancer, and prostate cancer to some people. It has also been considered as a pollutant which is active with estrogen. According to Belcher, long-term exposure to this chemical might be harmful to a person’s cardiovascular system. BPA’s are most active when there’s estrogen and estrogen is found within our bodies. This is the reason why BPA can easily enter into our bodies because of estrogen occurrence. There are so-called estrogen receptors that when BPA is exposed to it, the effects of BPA are amplified causing more damage to our health especially to our cardiac muscles or heart muscles. The researchers specify that the effects are more harmful to a female heart than to a male heart, based from their experiments using female rats and mice.

The researchers put more focus on the activities in the heart muscle when exposed to BPA and estrogen. According to them, only the female heart is being attacked more by BPA’s. It rapidly stimulates the contraction of heart muscle of a female heart, causing more leaks of calcium or calcium ions found inside the heart muscle cells of females. The researchers are being sex-specific as they are also concern of the pollutant’s harmful effects to women’s health.

This recent research in medicine has paved a new way of preventing heart defects especially to women. Plastics containing BPA must be avoided because not only it is harmful to our environment but also to our own individual health.


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