The goal of Torchia's Global Alert is to set new standards for health and wellness organisations throughout the United States and the World. However, he believes the key to success is by properly educating both children and adults.
"It is just as important to focus on preventing obesity, as it is to alleviating this rapidly growing disease affecting our nation," says Michael Torchia.
Bisphenol A was first synthesized in 1891, the first evidence of its estrogenicity came from experiments in the 1930's feeding BPA to rats. Another compound invented during that era, diethylstilbestrol, turned out to be more powerful as an estrogen, so bisphenol A was shelved... until polymer chemists discovered that it could be polymerized to form polycarbonate plastic. Unfortunately, the ester bond that links BPA monomers to one another to form a polymer is not stable and hence the polymer decays with time, releasing BPA into materials with which it comes into contact, for example food or water. Bisphenol A is now deeply imbedded in the products of modern consumer society, not just as the building block for polycarbonate plastic (from which it then leaches as the plastic ages) but also in the manufacture of epoxy resins and other plastics, including polysulfone, alkylphenolic, polyalylate, polyester-styrene, and certain polyester resins.
Its uses don't end with the making of plastic. Bisphenol A has been used as an inert ingredient in pesticides (although in the US this has apparently been halted), as a fungicide, antioxidant, flame retardant, rubber chemical, and polyvinyl chloride stabilizer. These uses create a myriad of exposures for people. Bisphenol A-based polycarbonate is used as a plastic coating for children's teeth to prevent cavities, as a coating in metal cans to prevent the metal from contact with food contents, as the plastic in food containers, refrigerator shelving, baby bottles, water bottles, returnable containers for juice, milk and water, micro-wave ovenware and eating utensils.
Experiments with mice reveal that chronic adult exposure to bisphenol A causes insulin resistance. Insulin resistance in people leads to Type II diabetes and congestive heart failure, and is part of the modern epidemic of 'metabolic syndrome'. The exposure levels used were within the range that people experience regularly.
In a small prospective study, researchers in Japan report that bisphenol A levels are higher in women with a history of repeated spontaneous miscarriages. This research was based on proof that BPA causes meiotic aneuploidy in mice. Meiotic aneuploidy is the commonest cause of miscarriage in people. The researchers also followed the pregnancies of the women to completion, and found evidence of aneuploidy in several of the miscarried fetuses.
Researchers investigating endocrine disruption had focused primarily on behavioral and reproductive consequences. But over the past few years, it's become clear that some of the synthetic chemicals that disrupt the endocrine system also induce weight gain. What's more, production of these chemicals closely tracks the rise of obesity.
The brain is a target, bone, as well as adipose tissue (fat cells). During prenatal and neonatal development, adipocytes (fat cells) receive the instructions they need to function properly throughout life. Scientists assumed that the reproductive tract was the target tissue. And now they're beginning to realise that it is only part of the problem. More and more researchers see how involved adipose tissue is, absorbing much more than normal, when affected by these chemicals. Researchers discovered a link between estrogen and obesity when scientists tried to replicate results on bisphenol A and prostate development. They produced obese animals.
Scientists found no differences in the prostates of mice fed bisphenol A or normal mouse food. Yet in 25 years of using that mouse strain, researchers had never seen an animal as big as those ever recorded. And, it turned out, all the rodent groups had enlarged prostates after all - which could explain why no differences were reported. The scientists had achieved with normal food what researchers had done with bisphenol A.
Scientists are concerned that exposing this "highly sensitive subgroup" of babies to environmental chemicals that lead to accelerated postnatal growth will permanently alter their capacity to metabolise even normal diets and predispose them, like the mice in his experiments, to a lifetime of obesity.
The Holistic Healing Foundation (HHF) researchers acknowledge that trying to unravel all the "phenomenally complex" interactions and components that contribute to obesity is "like chipping away at the food pyramid", but they have no doubt that animal studies on bisphenol A's effects have relevance to humans. HHF feel the chemical is harming snails, insects, lobsters, fish, frogs, reptiles, birds, and rats, and the chemical industry is telling people that because you're human, unless there's human data, you can feel completely safe.
For futher information, visit www.michaeltorchia.com.
Source: eMediaWire.com
