Following the FDA’s report on bishenol A (BPA), the synthetic hormone used in baby bottles and other household products, which has declared the levels of the chemical in these products safe, a new study confirms what everybody knew from other reports: the chemical has negative effects on human health. More exactly, the study linked higher urinary levels of BPA to an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease.

The study led by David Melzer of Peninsula Medical School in the U.K., used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted in 2003 and 2004 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The team of British and American scientists compared the health status of 1,455 men and women with the levels of the bisphenol in their urine. Those with higher concentrations of the chemical were nearly three times as likely to have cardiovascular disease compared with those with the lowest levels.

The BPA increased the risk for heart disease, including heart attack, or diabetes by 39 percent, the study found.
They found no connection between BPA and other diseases, including cancer.

“Even those with the highest BPA levels still had levels way below the currently established 'safe' level,” said David Melzer, an epidemiologist at the University of Exeter in England and coauthor of the study.

However, the researchers called the results of the study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association “preliminary.”

“It is very clear that that the FDA cannot conclude with certainly that BPA is safe. That option is no longer open to you given these new data,” said John Peterson Myers, CEO and chief scientist at the group Environmental Health Sciences. The agency said it would look at the latest research. The FDA agreed that more research needs to be done in order to understand BPA’s effects on human health.

Environmental groups and a growing number of consumer safety groups say there is enough evidence from previous studies to suggest that the so called baby bottle chemical is harmful to adults and children.