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| BPA has been linked to a number of potential health problems. |
The study, published Tuesday in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests the chemical, used as a coating on thermal receipt paper, can be absorbed through the skin.
The finding is important because scientists previously believed BPA’s primary path into the human body was by eating or drinking food packaged in cans lined with or plastic bottles manufactured with BPA.
The federal Food and Drug Administration says hundreds of studies have concluded that BPA is safe at the low levels that occur in some foods, although the agency is continuing its review of and research into the chemical.
BPA is used in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. In humans, BPA can interfere with the production, secretion, function and elimination of hormones.
It’s linked to a number of potential health problems in animals and humans, including obesity, impaired neurological development in children and lowered reproductive function. A 2009 University of Cincinnati study concluded that BPA could be harmful to the heart, especially for women.
Exposures faced by store clerks, who spend their days repeatedly touching BPA-laden receipts, are likely to be higher than people who only occasionally handle receipts. The study, which was designed to simulate what clerks do, also shows that gloves would shield clerks from any additional exposure.
Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s recruited 24 volunteers in 2011 to study the effects of the receipts. “We tried to simulate what a clerk does” all day long in dealing with customers and handling receipts, said Dr. Shelley Ehrlich, a obstetrician/gynecologist trained as an environmental and perinatal epidemiologist and author of the study.
Ehrlich, who works in Cincinnati Children’s division of biostatistics and epidemiology and also is an assistant professor at UC’s department of environmental health, said the researchers measured the levels of BPA in the volunteers’ urine.
Roughly four in five of the participants had BPA in the blood before the trial; once they had handled receipts, all of the volunteers showed levels of BPA. In addition, the volunteers’ levels of BPA continued to rise for eight hours once they had stopped handling the receipts.
The study’s goal was to point out how receipts can add to the total BPA exposure of the general population from a source “that may have been overlooked,” as well as revealing that clerks face higher levels of BPA because of their jobs, Ehrlich said.
Ehrlich noted that the study, funded by a grant from the Harvard School of Public Health/National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety’s Education and Research Center, should be followed by a larger scale study to confirm the findings and evaluate the clinical implications of chronic exposure to BPA.
A representative for the American Chemistry Council criticized the study for being “far too limited to determine if the handling of cash register receipt paper results in significant BPA exposure.”
But the spokesman for the industry trade group – Steven Hentges, who is a member of the council’s polycarbonate/BPA global group – said the study “does suggest that consumer exposures to BPA, including occasional contact with thermal paper receipts, are well below safe intake levels established by government regulators around the world.
“The BPA exposure levels measured in participants of this study appear to be even lower than the levels found to cause no adverse effects in recent comprehensive research conducted in FDA’s laboratory,” Hentges said in an e-mail statement.
Source: Cincinnati.com
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