Controversial BPA Study Challenged

The findings of a study linking the packaging chemical bisphenol A (BPA) to heart disease, type 2 diabetes and liver enzyme abnormalities could well be the result of chance rather than representing real health concerns, claim two scientists.

In a letter to be published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Dr Stanley Young, assistant director of bioinformatics at the U.S. National Institute of Statistical Sciences, and Ming Yu from the University of British Columbia, highlight the statistical limitations of the study from UK researchers.

The study, also published in JAMA last September by Dr. Ian Lang and his colleagues, concluded that the 25 percent of people with the highest levels of BPA in their bodies were more than twice as likely to have heart disease and, or diabetes compared to the 25 per cent of the people with the lowest levels.

However, Young and Yu maintain that Lang et al’s research did not adequately address the potential for multiple testing to result in a false positive result.

They claim that the CDC National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2004 that was used in Lang et al's study measured 275 environmental chemicals and a wide range of health outcomes.

Young and Yu point out that with 32 possible health outcomes, including combinations, potentially associated with any of the 275 chemicals, along with confounders and statistical models, there could be as many as nine million statistical models available to analyze the data so the conclusions of the UK researchers on BPA can only be arbitrary.

Source: FoodProductionDaily.com