A new study published this week by the Harvard School of Public Health is putting more pressure on food processors to find alternative packaging. Evidence is mounting that one of the culprits of the current obesity epidemic, and a probable cause of increasing diabetes, is the common packaging compound, Bisphenol A (BpA).
With a number of regulators around the world now banning the use of BpA plasticisers in infant bottle and infant food packaging, the Harvard research identifies the lining in food cans as being an equally likely source of the compound’s presence in the human food chain. If so, the international food industry could be faced with a massive conversion of its packaging processes to eliminate the presence of BpA.
The Harvard study was of BpA migration through injection of canned soup, showing a 1200% increase in excretion of BpA by subjects given five daily servings of canned vegetable soup, compared with those who ate fresh soup. The research project using a group of 75 subjects divided into 2 groups, was headed by Dr Jenny Carwile and Dr Karin Michels, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health.
Although other research shows that BpA does not build up high residual levels in the human body, Dr Michels said of their results, “It may be advisable for manufacturers to consider eliminating BPA from can linings.”
The presence in food of pollutants such as BpA has recently been identified as a probable influence on the development of diabetes in humans, increasing pressure on public health regulators to take action on BpA’s use in food and beverage packaging. Most concern over the presence of BpA in food until now has been its endocrine disruption behaviour, especially in young children, and a summary of evidence by US health authorities that, …the weight of evidence suggests that BPA increases cancer susceptibility… (US National Institutes of Health and US Environmental Protection Agency, June 2007).
Responding to the Harvard findings, New Zealand Food and Grocery Council CEO Katherine Rich said, “This study will no doubt be used as another opportunity to call for the banning of BPA, but the study itself doesn’t say anything new or state anything that hasn’t previously been said before in other studies.
“When it comes to food standards food companies look to the advice of government regulators around the world for guidance,” she says.
NZ Food Safety Authority told foodnews today, “MAF is looking to source the study and will respond once we have reviewed it.”
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