Next time you use a plastic cup or your eating from products such as canned foods, think a restaurant or even your home, you’re exposing yourself to BPA or a similar family of chemicals, known as phthalates. If your pregnant you risk having a child with anxiety or depression.

If the product states it’s BPA free it may indeed continue to be toxic, as BPS and BPF are two new substitutes that are potentially even worse in the phthalates family.

Is there real concern especially if your pregnant…..you bet. There is a continuation of ongoing studies suggesting more concerning, including cancer connections along with a host of heart disease and other disorders. 

With that said what’s one to do ? Ditch the plastics and really make an effort to use alternative wrapping products and reduce your dependance on canned or plastic wrapped foods.

Lets do a quick review of where your probably getting dosed and what to do:

1. What do you use for your water bottle. Go glass with a silicon cover or stainless steel with a silicon cover and cap.

2. Canned goods…..well fresh is always best and canned in glass is your next choice.

3. For storage….back to glass, stainless or silicon containers.

4. Next is getting rid of handling the receipts that we all tend to accumulate. Just say no or if you need the documentation, take a picture or use one of the applications to keep track of the receipts.

5. Then move on to dental products. Ask before you let the dentist just coat your or your kids teeth and the list goes on…. including pizza box’s (some), the water cooler plastic 5 gallon bottle and even TP…….

Be safe rather than sorry and reduce your risk. Handle less receipts, check you kitchen and make a few changes, today.

Want some help or need direction, call us at 541.773.3191

Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health News, 08/18/2016

Boys exposed prenatally to a common chemical used in plastics may be more likely to develop symptoms of anxiety and depression at age 10–12. The new study by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) within the Mailman School of Public Health examined early life exposure to the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA). Results were published in the journal Environmental Research. Perera and her co–investigators followed 241 nonsmoking pregnant women and their children, a subset of CCCEH’s longstanding urban birth cohort study in New York City, from pregnancy through childhood. To measure the amount of BPA that had been absorbed in the body, researchers collected a urine sample from the mothers during the third trimester of their pregnancy, and from the children at age 3 and age 5. At ages 10–12, children completed an interview with a trained researcher about their symptoms of depression and completed a self–assessment that measures anxiety. Researchers controlled for factors that have been previously associated with BPA exposure levels, including socioeconomic factors. After separating the data by sex, they found that boys with the highest levels of prenatal exposure to BPA had more symptoms of depression and anxiety than boys with lower levels of prenatal exposure to BPA; no such associations were found in girls. “These findings are consistent with our prior reports on BPA and children’s development assessed at earlier ages and suggest greater susceptibility of the male brain during prenatal development,” says Perera, a professor of Environmental Health Sciences. “Anxiety and depression are particularly worrisome because they can interfere with a child’s ability to concentrate, perform in school, socialize and make friends,” adds neuropsychologist and co–investigator Amy Margolis, PhD, assistant professor of Medical Psychology in Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center.