Are you ready for this? Here comes another black mark for BPA.
Over the past few years, research has linked BPA, or bisphenol-A, to a wide range of adverse health effects, such as obesity, behavioral changes, diabetes, early onset puberty, asthma, cardiovascular diseases, reproductive disorders and the development of prostate, breast and uterine cancer. And if all of that weren't bad enough, the latest research finds that BPA may also be destroying our teeth.
A new study from researchers in France looked at the effect that BPA can have on tooth enamel. The study, published in the American Journal of Pathology, looked at rats exposed to low doses of BPA and found that the chemical may cause white spots and damage to the tooth enamel, making it fragile or brittle and possibly more susceptible to pain, cavities and decay.
“It is probably a problem,” said Sylvie Babajko, a researcher at France's national medical research center and the lead author of the study, “because things and food contain BPA and we are probably all exposed to BPA. And it has been shown, at least with experiments on animals, that BPA can cause a lot of defects, and teeth are one additional target of BPA.”
Researchers hope to do more study in this area, but the early results are yet another reason to avoid BPA as often as possible.