Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical that is used in a wide variety of plastics, from water bottles and food packaging to sunglasses and CDs. In fact, virtually every canned food or drink item has a plastic liner that is made with BPA, from pop to vegetables to your favorite type of tuna. BPA can be found in human breastmilk and in the blood streams of even the most careful consumers.

More and more research is linking BPA to significant health risks, including hormonal disorders, obesity, abnormal brain development and certain cancers.

New research shows that a pregnant woman’s exposure to BPA can affect their unborn child and increase that child’s chances of asthma.

Studies of rats show that mothers who were given BPA in their drinking water (at concentrations equivalent to that found in humans). Researchers found that the offspring of mother rats exposed to BPA were much more likely to develop symptoms of asthma.

While the exact mechanism behind BPA and increased asthma is not yet known, researchers hypothesize that it is BPA’s quality as an “environmental estrogen”. When these chemicals circulate in our bodies, they can activate biochemical signaling pathways in our immune system in dangerous ways.

Lead author, Terumi Midoro-Horiuti, said, “Our results show that we have to consider the possible impact of environmental estrogens on normal immune development and on the development and morbidity of immunologic diseases such as asthma.” The next logical step would be studies to determine if children with higher BPA exposure are more likely to develop diseases such as asthma.

Source: Science Daily