New Study Reveals That BPA Makes Your Body Store Fat

It has been believed that BPA (bisphenol-A) that is commonly found in food packaging plastics and such was healthy for the body.




 However, scientists in Canada have determined that simply isn’t true.




BPA is commonly found in food containers and wrappers such as cans, receipts made of papers and plastics. Since the food sits in those cans, it can absorb those chemicals and the chemical comes in close contact with the skin and food which then finds its way into the body. Almost every consumer has trace amounts of BPA in their system.

Scientists were always reassuring consumers that there were no long term effects on the body. However, new studies indicate the body doesn’t metabolize the chemical as efficiently as they once thought. Instead, it actually might be transformed by our bodies into a compound that can cause obesity.



Health Canada was the first to study the effects of BPA and whether or not it is metabolized by the body and how it impacts cells, fat growth and the liver. Scientists are now under the assumption that it is important that consumers become aware about these chemical additives because it really isn’t metabolized by the liver so it can contribute to gaining fat.

Ignoring the fact that BPA can possibly hinder good health is a major issue. Consumers are exposed to BPA almost daily and it can seep into food from canned goods or even plastic storage containers. However, it’s really hard to avoid BPA because it’s difficult to stay away from processed and packaged food. BPA also enters the body through air and water that has been polluted by packaging that has been filled with BPA. This synthetic chemical has been flooding the food market and it causes a lot of it to enter our body.

BPA enters the body through consuming or even breathing. Within about 6 hours of its presence in the body, the liver will metabolize only half of this. Much of this chemical is then transformed into BPA Glucuronide which is a metabolite.

When Health Canada scientists tested both mouse and human cells which were treated with BPA Glucuronide, there is still some of the chemical left in the body after it has been metabolized by the body. The research results showed that there was a drastic increase in the accumulation of lipids. While it was thought to be an inactive compound, it is actually active in the system and can even disrupt the endocrine system.

You might think the body can protect us from BPA. While the liver serves as the body’s filtration system and fights against bad chemicals, the liver is sometimes unable to neutralize some of the processed harsh compounds. Our metabolism doesn’t just serve to clean the body. Instead, the liver takes these chemicals that it recognizes as harmful and turns them into some type of substance that our bodies can safely filter out of the body. So, the liver doesn’t process BPA like we think it might according to research.

While researchers aren’t sure why BPA metabolizes the way it does within our bodies, it could be because the compound seems to resemble estrogen hormones present in the body. By hitting certain receptors in the body’s cells, it is possibly the reason why BPA Glucuronide has the effect on fat cells that it does.

While this can be scary, this is only part of the knowledge we know about how BPA can impact the body and there are other ways that BPA’s impacts haven’t even been analyzed yet. Manufacturers will argue though by saying that the fat cell increase was due to concentrations of BPA-Glucuronide was much higher during experimentation than it would be to the average human when exposed to BPA. Manufacturers were finding flaws of the experiments and defending that BPA is made uniformly by protocol.

Regardless, Health Canada will continue additional studies. These studies may eventually cause regulatory agencies to take a look at the true effects of BPA or other chemicals in the body and deem them dangerous.

Source: http://yourhealthypage.com