Salmonella in peanut butter, mercury in high fructose corn syrup, staph-resistant bacteria in pork, and now, new and improved bisphenol A (BPA), with longer staying power, in your very own body.

Yesterday, the online journal Environmental Health Perspectives published new research that shows that high levels of BPA—a chemical with potential links to a wide range of health effects—remain in the body even after fasting for as long as 24 hours. Dr. Richard Stahlhut of the University of Rochester and colleagues obtained data for a sample of 1,469 American adults through the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

According to the authors, two possible explanations might exist for the higher levels of BPA in people who fasted: One is that exposure to BPA might come through other means, such as house dust or tap water. The second is that BPA may penetrate fat tissues, where it would be released more slowly.  But the research indicates for the first time that we are either constantly being bombarded with BPA from non-food sources or we are storing it in our fat cells, unable to get rid of it as quickly as scientists have believed.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 93 percent of Americans have detectable levels of BPA in their urine. BPA is found in the linings of metal food cans and in many plastic products, including sports bottles, food-storage containers and baby bottles. It’s also used in PVC water pipes and in dental sealants. Cellular, animals and some human studies have shown BPA effects on the brain, prostate, normal hormonal systems and gene programming which can lead to several problems with reproduction, behavior, insulin resistance, heart disease and even cancer.

The FDA and the European Food Safety Authority had declared BPA safe based, in part, on assumptions that BPA passed quickly through the body and that people were exposed to BPA primarily through food. Canada, however, has declared BPA to be a toxin and banned its use in baby bottles last year. More than a dozen states are considering banning it too.

In September, the National Toxicology Program expressed “some concern” about the effects of BPA on the development in children and fetuses. Then in October, an advisory panel to the FDA harshly criticized the agency, saying it ignored important evidence, including studies that suggest babies are at risk. In December, the FDA finally agreed to reconsider the health risks of BPA, but at present, the agency hasn’t changed its opinion on BPA’s safety.

If you haven’t been up on BPA-water-bottle-gate, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has done some outstanding reporting on conflicts at FDA and also tested 10 household products and found toxic levels of BPA leaching from all of them. The newspaper found federal regulators favored industry-financed studies in their assessments. (The FDA safety assessment relied on two studies, both paid for by chemical-makers, and ignored hundreds of independent studies that found the chemical to cause harm in laboratory animals.) Another must read is Fast Company’s in-depth piece on the real story of BPA.

More research on long-term exposure to BPA is critical so that we can learn how BPA might be stored in fat and to determine the myriad means by which we are being exposed to this toxin. In the meantime, consumer advocates advise avoid using food containers with BPA. Drinking from metal or glass water bottles and avoiding canned foods by buying in buy in bulk are some good ways to try and avoid BPA until we learn more. Let’s hope that’s soon.

Photo: gerrychu

The HFCS industry has been shrouded in mystery since it began in the 1970s, essentially the result of “get big or get out” record corn harvests and subsequent plummeting commodity prices for farmers.  What to do with all that excess corn? The answer was not to decrease yields, but to find a way to get that corn into our stomachs.  This has led to the proliferation of HFCS in nearly all processed foods you find in the grocery store.  The industry has lacked transparency, and our government has refused to mediate our current health crisis — an upswing in diabetes and obesity resulting from cheap calories like HFCS — with regulation.  So its not surprising that it took so long for the news to reach the public eye.

The initial study [PDF] led by Renee Dufault, a now-retired Environmental Health Officer-cum-whistleblower, was published yesterday in Environmental Health, and found that nearly half the samples of HFCS tested contained mercury residue. The impetus for the study was to find approximately 58 tons of mercury that was reported missing in 2000 (and it is assumed yearly) from the chlor-alkali plants (makers of chlorine and caustic soda) in operation in the U.S.

Where has it gone? apparently some of it has gone into our veins and tissues.

Before now, our greatest threat for mercury exposure was through fish, followed by mercury amalgam in dentistry and through vaccines, as it is sometimes used as a preservative. But Dufault’s study estimates that exposure via HFCS could be up to 50 times that of mercury amalgam exposure in children age 3-19, as this age group is the largest consumers of HFCS.

Of course we know that mercury is a cumulative toxin, especially dangerous to pregnant women and children, and that those with high exposure (Jeremy Piven among them, from eating too much sushi) show signs of sensory impairment, sensation loss and lack of coordination.  This disorder was formerly referred to as Mad Hatter’s Syndrome, because haberdashers who produced felt hats in the 18th and 19th centuries used a mercury compound in their process.

We too have had a potential day to day exposure to the heavy metal, just by choosing our food from the boxes and bottles in the center aisles of the grocery store.  Aside from the case against us for improper nutrition, we could be slowly poisoning ourselves.

A second study, by David Wallinga, M.D. and his co-authors entitled “Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup,” [PDF] tested products directly from the supermarket.  One in three tested positive for mercury residue.  These included products like Smucker’s Strawberry Jelly, Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup, Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, Nutra Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars, Pop-Tarts Frosted Blueberry and Coca-Cola Classic.

The reason Wallinga cited for his extension of the original study was that:

Many of these products are specifically marketed to groups vulnerable to mercury. Soft drinks, fruit juices, and other junk food are successfully marketed to children not only through Internet and television advertising, but also in school vending machine and cafeteria options. People who rely on food stamps or who live in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods are also a special target for junk food manufacturers, because they offer the most accessible and often least expensive calories in the grocery store.

He went on to criticize the FDA for not doing its job, and urged for mercury, which is not required to produce HFCS, to be taken out of the process.  I agree, but I would like to see our government push the corn refining industry further:  They should be shouldering responsibility for our declining health in this country, and as such, should be more adequately regulated.  If it were up to food justice advocates, the substance would be banned outright.  But corn refiners should at least be held accountable for misleading advertising, and consumers should be aware of what they are buying, through better transparency on labels.

So the question is, what will the FDA do with this new found information?  Dufault urges the creation of a mercury surveillance program, that monitors foods besides fish, along with additional public health evaluation of the exposure to mercury through HFCS.  But can we really keep avoiding the deeper problem, that HFCS, as a product of the human imagination, could possibly be a failed experiment?  For the sake of our health, it might be time for the government to finally intervene.