Bisphenol A (BPA), which was once used to create infant bottles before being outlawed in Europe, the US, and other countries a decade ago, is now widely used in food packaging across the union.
According to recent research, nearly all Europeans have a hormone-disrupting toxin in their bodies, which poses a serious health danger.
The hormone-disrupting chemical Bisphenol A (BPA), according to data released by the European Environment Agency on Thursday (Sept. 14), was found in 71 to 100% of people in the 11 countries analyzed.
“A recent Horizon 2020 research initiative, HBM4EU, measured chemicals in people’s bodies in Europe and detected BPA in the urine of 92 percent of adult participants from 11 European countries,” the agency noted in a new study.
The substance, which was once used to create infant bottles before being outlawed in Europe, the US, and other countries a decade ago, is now widely used in food packaging across the union.
The EFSA substantially cut the recommended maximum daily intake of BPA for consumers in April, reducing it from four millionths of a gram to 0.2 billionths of a gramme by a factor of 20,000.
Health issues
According to the research, BPA consumption beyond the established amount may cause health issues like “breast cancer and infertility,” which are linked to hormone disruption.
The majority of individuals may be exposed to this chemical while consuming food and drink because it is still often used to create plastic for food and beverage packaging.
Agencies begin to disagree with one another
The allowable daily BPA consumption that a person can ingest throughout their lifetime without damaging their health, however, is under debate.
The updated maximum suggested limits of the EFSA have been contested by the European Medicines Agency, which is in charge of medicinal approvals.
They have criticized the EFSA’s methodology and asserted that the organization acted prematurely, especially in light of the lack of a shown causal relationship in studies involving either humans or animals.
Despite this, the EEA found that people’s exposure to BPA “is well above acceptable health safety levels, according to updated research data.”
Millions of individuals could be at risk of health because of this, it stated.
The reported exceedances are the bare minimum. There is a chance that all 11 of the countries actually have exposure rates that are 100% higher than acceptable limits, it said.