No question, cheaper, more convenient products made from polycarbonate plastics can exposure your body to all sorts of toxins -- like bisphenol A (BPA) -- it was never meant to handle. Those very same toxic products, leeching BPA into your body, may also increase your unborn baby's risk of breast cancer in adulthood, according to a new study.
Tufts University researchers came to that conclusion after exposing pregnant rats to BPA in doses ranging from 2.5-1,000 micrograms per day (based on their body weight). By the time newborn rats reached puberty (50 days old), some 25 percent of their mammary ducts had precancerous lesions, as much as four times higher than researchers observed in the control group.
The amount of exposure to BPA is very important here, as many patients are exposed to at least 2.5 micrograms of BPA, according to the American Chemical Society, and breast cancer rates are growing. Makes sense, considering just 0.23 parts per billion is enough to disrupt the effect of estrogen in a baby's developing brain.
Although it may be nearly impossible to completely avoid all toxins, there are many common sense steps you can take today to reduce your exposure to them.
Reproductive Toxicology October 24, 2006Foodconsumer.org December 18, 2006Environmental Science & Technology December 20, 2006