[neverdem]

"BISPHENOL A (BPA) IS USED TO manufacture polycarbonate resin"

That's the first string of text from the JAMA article. When I searched for it on Google, I got the abstract linked in comment# 1.

Here's another quote from the article:

"In bivariate analysis, urinary metabolites of other phenols were not associated with overweight or obesity (eTable 4) with the exception of urinary benzophenone level with obesity." (I'm a doc. I get a courtesy hard copy of JAMA. I don't subscribe.)

For the benefit of those without knowledge of organic chemistry, this is what these molecules look like in a standard notation. You start with benzene:

http://www.chemspider.com/Chemical-Structure.236.html?rid=c3984e58-c253-4f80-9b7f-f78b5e807876

Here's phenol:

http://www.chemspider.com/Chemical-Structure.971.html?rid=3da5b009-c6ff-49a6-8873-a31880cfa023

Here's bisphenol A:

http://www.chemspider.com/Chemical-Structure.6371.html?rid=97b539ca-dcb6-4641-a56e-820926726af0

Here's benzophenone:

http://www.chemspider.com/Chemical-Structure.2991.html?rid=a6724351-9bd0-4bfb-bebe-ca250a50f428

Get the picture? The hypothesis that BPA is an endocrine disruptor is definitely worth testing, IMHO.

[Stosh]

Not sure I’ve ever seen Lewis structures on FR before - that was pretty cool.

And you’re right that it does make sense to test BPA as an endocrine disruptor; among other things, it has a strong structural similarity to stilbene compounds that are known to behave in that way.

But it’s not like BPA hasn’t been studied in that context; on the contrary, it’s been studied to death, and it’s health effects continue to be studied. In that context, the European Union (about as anal as they come when it comes to chemical paranoia) has initiated yet another study of the compound, despite the fact that their latest study, probably the most extensive and rigorous ever carried out, demonstrated no reason for concern for BPA at levels commonly found in humans: http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/bisphenol.htm

My major concern is that in just reading the headline to the article (which I’m prone to do, I must admit) it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that BPA ingestion will lead to obesity. I will compliment the poster for stating straight out that correlation doesn’t necessarily indicate causation, and your point on the value of investigating the health effects of BPA is a reasonable one - it’s just a question of how much study is enough, a point on which I believe reasonable people can disagree.