A sixty-year old plus friend recently shared an interesting testimony about how her estrogen levels had suddenly risen above a normal level, much to both her and her doctor’s surprise. As she began reviewing her daily eating and activity habits, she noticed only one major change in her behavior over the past several months: Since Christmas she had been regularly consuming coffee via Keurig cup containers. At first, she didn’t think there was any reason to associate the two, but thought it wouldn’t hurt to eliminate her consumption just in case and upon doing so her estrogen levels lowered almost immediately.
The correlation between the two could be a coincidence; however, it would be an unlikely one. It seems that other people have raised the same concern since the introduction of the plastic containers even though these containers were FDA approved as “BPA-free”. The real question the public has not had answered by the makers of these K-cup products is, “What is the plastic to produce the K-cups and what are the known effects they have on our bodies?”
Keurig’s website addresses the BPA concern with the following statement:
“K-Cup® and Vue® packs do not contain BPA and are constructed using FDA-approved food safe materials. We also use FDA-approved food safe materials in our K-Cup® and Vue® brewing systems, and neither system contains BPA within its water paths (as of January 1, 2010 for our K-Cup® system).” (http://www.keurig.com/social-responsibility)
What Keurig is not addressing are the effects of any plastic liner used, under extensive heat and which products they are using in replacement of a BPA plastic. According to a study by “The Environmental Health Perspectives”, even BPA free products are not as safe as you might expect. In July, 2011, the NCBI released the following study, clearly noting that a product labeled BPA free can still release chemicals that contain estrogenic activity when subjected to certain conditions (i.e. Hot temperatures).
Below are the results of the study:
Background: Chemicals having estrogenic activity (EA) reportedly cause many adverse health effects, especially at low (picomolar to nanomolar) doses in fetal and juvenile mammals.
Objectives: We sought to determine whether commercially available plastic resins and products, including baby bottles and other products advertised as bisphenol A (BPA) free, release chemicals having EA.
Methods: We used a roboticized MCF-7 cell proliferation assay, which is very sensitive, accurate, and repeatable, to quantify the EA of chemicals leached into saline or ethanol extracts of many types of commercially available plastic materials, some exposed to common-use stresses (microwaving, ultraviolet radiation, and/or autoclaving).
Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than did BPA-containing products.
Conclusions: Many plastic products are mischaracterized as being EA free if extracted with only one solvent and not exposed to common-use stresses. However, we can identify existing compounds, or have developed, monomers, additives, or processing agents that have no detectable EA and have similar costs. Hence, our data suggest that EA-free plastic products exposed to common-use stresses and extracted by saline and ethanol solvents could be cost-effectively made on a commercial scale and thereby eliminate a potential health risk posed by most currently available plastic products that leach chemicals having EA into food products.
If you are a cancer patient, survivor or simply want to avoid the possibility of cancer, avoid the use of plastics especially under the exposure of high temperatures. The risk is simply not worth it.
Quick Tips for Wellness: BPA-free may still put your health at risk.
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