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BPA — Poison in Our Midst?
New data links bisphenol A (BPA) to overall mortality. But the analysis is not clear cut.
This little fellow is a chemical called bisphenol A, and he’s having a rough time.
From darling of the plastics injury to baby bottle pariah, BPA has generated a lot of controversy over its potentially negative health effects. And the BPA boosters will be brushed back a bit with the publication of this study, appearing in JAMA network open, that links urinary BPA levels to overall mortality in a nationally representative sample.
There is a lot to recommend about this study. Past studies have by and large been cross-sectional — examining BPA levels among people with and without obesity, for instance. But this design makes determining causality really hard. Does BPA make people obese, or do obese people hold on to more BPA?
Researchers, led by Wei Bao at the University of Iowa got around this limitation by using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey — a federal project that samples people from all over the US collecting data about their… well… health and nutrition — including, in a…
