Medica 2008: news about Public Health at Medica

Medica 2008: - Hot Liquids: Impact on Chemicals in Plastic Bottles When it comes to Bisphenol A (BPA) exposure from polycarbonate plastic bottles the liquid’s temperature has the most impact on how much BPA is released, according to University of Cincinnati (UC) scientists. - Safety Belts: Less Deaths also in Rear Seat. A study carried out at the Universidad de Granada reveals that women and children younger than three years old who travel in the rear seats of the car are more likely to die in the event of a road crash than men. -Girls: Environmental Toxins Linked to Early Onset Puberty. Although scientists have speculated over the negative effects of environmental toxins for years, new data suggest that certain environmental toxins may disrupt the normal growth and hormonal development of girls.

Scott Belcher, PhD, and his team found when the same new and used polycarbonate drinking bottles were exposed to boiling hot water, BPA, an environmental estrogen, was released 55 times more rapidly than before exposure to hot water.

“Previous studies have shown that if you repeatedly scrub, dish-wash and boil polycarbonate baby bottles, they release BPA. That tells us that BPA can migrate from various polycarbonate plastics,” explains Belcher, UC associate professor of pharmacology and cell biophysics and corresponding study author. “But we wanted to know if ‘normal’ use caused increased release from something that we all use, and to identify what was the most important factor that impacts release.”
“Inspired by questions from the climbing community, we went directly to tests based on how consumers use these plastic water bottles and showed that the only big difference in exposure levels revolved around liquid temperature: Bottles used for up to nine years released the same amount of BPA as new bottles.”
BPA is one of many man-made chemicals classified as endocrine disruptors, which alter the function of the endocrine system by mimicking the role of the body’s natural hormones. Hormones are secreted through endocrine glands and serve different functions throughout the body. The chemical — which is widely used in products such as reusable water bottles, food can linings, water pipes and dental sealants — has been shown to affect reproduction and brain development in animal studies.
All bottles were subjected to seven days of testing designed to simulate normal usage during backpacking, mountaineering and other outdoor adventure activities. Belcher stresses that it is still unclear what level of BPA is harmful to humans. He urges consumers to think about how cumulative environmental exposures might harm their health.

Car Safety Belts

The research work also points out that the left side of the inside is more dangerous than the central or the right side. The Spanish Government's General Traffic Directorate (DGT) has been insisting for many years on that using the safety belt on the road can save lives. However, most of the drivers associate this warning with the use of such device in the front seats of cars, whereas its use in the rear seats is much more reduced.
With such a situation on the table, the paper “Individual factors affecting the risk of death for rear-seated passengers in road crashes”, prepared by researchers of the department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health of the Universidad de Granada and the department of Statistics, shows the importance of the use of the safety belt in the rear seats of the car. Their work has produced very significant data such as the following one: the use of this safety system in such seats reduces the risk of death by a 44 per cent.
The research work, carried out from data provided by the Government's General Traffic Directorate on road crashes occurred between 1993 and 2002 in Spain, analyses the death of the occupants of the rear seats according to their age, gender, use of restraint systems and seat position. To carry out this analysis they only considered the data concerning vehicles occupied by two or three rear-seated passengers for accidents in which at least one of these passengers was killed. The authors analyzed all 5,260 rear-seated passengers, who were travelling in 2,266 vehicles 2,851 of which were killed.

Girls: Environmental Toxins Linked to Early Onset Puberty
Some of these toxins, such as the mycoestrogen zearalenone (ZEA) produced by the Fusarium fungus species, can be found naturally in the environment, have properties similar to the female reproductive hormone estrogen, and are also structurally similar to anabolic growth agents used in animal breeding. A new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics suggests that certain mycoestrogens may be directly linked to the early onset of sexual development in young girls.
Dr. Francesco Massart and colleagues from the University of Pisa in Italy studied a group of girls affected by the early onset of puberty, or central precocious puberty (CPP), from the North-West region of Tuscany. They undertook the study to explain why this area has a much higher than average incidence of CPP. The authors tested the girls for mycoestrogens to see if environmental toxins were a factor in the girls premature sexual development.
Six of the 17 girls with CPP were found to have elevated levels of ZEA. According to Dr. Massart, although this finding might be incidental, ZEA may be related to CPP occurrence in girls exposed to mycoestrogens. However, the presence of ZEA pollution could not explain the epidemic of CPP in the region, suggesting that other environmental factors such as herbicides and pesticides may be involved.
The authors also noted that because of its chemical resemblance to some anabolic growth agents used in animal breeding, ZEA may promote accelerated growth in exposed children. Though the researchers were unable to identify a definitive cause of the high rates of CPP in this region of Tuscany, the study identifies the need for more research into the possible negative effects of environmental pollutants on children.