Bisphenol-A is not hazardous to human health, as previously thought
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Bisphenol-A - a compound that is part of household plastic has long been recognized as dangerous to health. Both scientists and officials urged producers to refuse to add this compound to their products, and consumers to study the composition of the products they purchased.
As previous studies have shown, this compound provokes the development of cancerous tumors, immune diseases, disrupts the hormonal background, and so on.
But after long disputes with the European Food Safety Agency, they concluded that bisphenol-A is not at all dangerous to human life and health. Now, representatives of the agency say that plastic products, which include this connection can be used without fear.
The official statement of the food control agency said that the concentration in which bisphenol-A is contained in household plastic does not pose any health hazard, and such products can be used even in pregnancy, this will not affect the development of the fetus in any way. The danger is only high doses of bisphenol-A, which enter the human body. Previously it was believed that a person without harm to health can consume up to 50 μg of bisphenol-A per 1 kg of weight, but now scientists have changed this figure to 4 μg.
It is worth noting that bisphenol-A is used by manufacturers as a hardener in the manufacture of plastic products. But recently there have been more frequent questions about the high carcinogenicity of the compound, which has been confirmed by several studies. Because bisphenol-A has a structural similarity with the sex hormone estrogen, it breaks the endocrine function, which in turn leads to the development of hormone-dependent cancer.
Recently, at the research center of the University of Calgary, scientists have found that bisphenol-A can be the cause of hyperactivity. The scientists conducted their experiments on zebrafish.
Some manufacturers replaced the dangerous compound in their products with bisphenol-S, which allowed them to label their products "Does not contain bisphenol-A," however, as experiments have shown, both compounds lead to changes in the brain, which causes hyperactivity.
In their studies, experts used zebrafish, because they have similar to human genes (about 80%). In the experiment, experts studied the effect on the fish body of the minimum dose of a hazardous compound that was contained in drinking water (it is worth noting that it is impossible to purify water from such compounds).
As a result, experts found that water provoked negative changes in the brain. Bisphenol-S changed the formation of neurons in the brain in fish, the number of neurons increased by 240%, which caused increased excitability and activity, and also formed atypical brain chains.
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