s

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/28/water-bottles-health.html

Yes! That's great news for the planet, if it reduces the amount of bottled water sold. As usual, the scientists say not to jump to conclusions, but the 2 experiments they did are quite telling.

Quote :

"Plastic Water Bottles May Pose Health Hazard Emily Sohn, Discovery News April 28, 2009 -- With all of the bad press swirling around certain types of plastic lately, regular old plastic water bottles have maintained a reputation as safe, at least as far as human health is concerned. New evidence, however, suggests that plastic water bottles may not be so benign after all. Scientists in Germany have found that PET plastics -- the kind used to make water bottles, among many other common products -- may also harbor hormone-disrupting chemicals that leach into the water. It's too soon to say whether drinking out of PET plastic bottles is harmful to human health, said lead researcher Martin Wagner, an ecotoxicologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt. But it now appears possible that some as-yet unidentified chemicals in these plastics have the potential to interfere with estrogen and other reproductive hormones, just as the infamous plasticizers BPA and phthalates do. "What we found was really surprising to us," Wagner said. "If you drink water from plastic bottles, you have a high probability of drinking estrogenic compounds." The study adds to growing concerns about products that span the plastic spectrum, added Shanna Swan, an epidemiologist at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York. "This is coming at a good time because the use of bottles for consuming water is getting very bad press now because of its carbon footprint," she said. "It's just another nail in the coffin of bottled water, the way I see it." Wagner and a colleague used genetically engineered yeast to analyze 20 samples of mineral water. Nine samples came our of glass bottles. Nine were bottled in PET plastic. And two were in cardboard, juice-like boxes. The specialized yeast -- which change color in the presence of estrogen-like compounds -- revealed estrogenic activity in seven of the nine plastic bottles (and both cardboard samples), compared with just three of the nine glass ones. Overall, Wagner said, levels of these compounds in the water were surprisingly high. German mineral water comes from natural springs. So, to see if the estrogenic compounds were actually coming from the water itself, Wagner emptied the bottles and replaced the water with a pure snail medium and a tiny species of snail that is especially sensitive to estrogenic compounds. Eight weeks later, female snails living in plastic bottles had more than twice as many embryos inside their bodies compared to the glass-grown snails. "Something from the plastic," Wagner said, "must have leached out and changed the reproductive patterns of our snails." Wagner cautions against jumping to conclusions. Water is still a healthy beverage, he said. And until the compounds at work in the snail study have been identified, it's just not possible to know if PET plastics pose a human health risk. Still, tests in his lab have shown far less estrogenic activity in tap water than in even the most "ultra-pure" bottled waters. "Having done all of these experiments, I started drinking tap water," Wagner told Discovery News. "It might have other stuff in it, but at least it doesn't have estrogenic compounds." It may also be time, Swan said, to reconsider how safe the so-called "safe" plastics really are. "I used to say: '4, 5, 1, and 2. All the rest are bad for you,'" she said, referring to the recycling codes on plastic products. "Now, I'm not saying that anymore. We don't know about 4, 5, 1, or 2. This raises questions about all plastic bottles.""

4/30/2009 10:04:22 PM

i'm too lazy to search for what PET plastic is - tell me

4/30/2009 10:10:27 PM

Does germany not have spectrometers?

What's with the yeast and snails?

4/30/2009 10:12:22 PM

theres a news story about this like once a year...its just a bunch of rubbish

4/30/2009 10:13:48 PM

buying bottled water is such a wasted of money anyway, i cant understand why people do it

4/30/2009 10:25:12 PM

you'll be fine so long as you don't leave bottled water in your car on a summer day and then drink out of it

Quote :

"Eight weeks later, female snails living in plastic bottles had more than twice as many embryos inside their bodies compared to the glass-grown snails. "Something from the plastic," Wagner said, "must have leached out and changed the reproductive patterns of our snails.""

don't live in a plastic bottle for eight weeks

don't be the same size as snails

don't be female

Quote :

"buying bottled water is such a wasted of money anyway, i cant understand why people do it"

convenience?

[Edited on April 30, 2009 at 10:29 PM. Reason : asdfgh]

4/30/2009 10:28:13 PM

^ sorry, your first analogy is wrong. if you drink bottled water that was bottled a few weeks ago, you are being exposed to the same amount of chemicals.

convenience laziness



[Edited on April 30, 2009 at 10:31 PM. Reason : ]

4/30/2009 10:30:44 PM

depends on how the bottles of water were stored after packaging

if at room temperature or colder, you're fine

if stored in heat, things will leach out faster


and snail media isn't the same as water so you can't say the same things that leach out into snail media will necessarily leach out into water...

[Edited on April 30, 2009 at 10:35 PM. Reason : asdfgh]

4/30/2009 10:33:55 PM

that's true, but i doubt the snails were kept in heat. i am sure they were kept in room temperature.

anyway, with all the chemicals modern humans are exposed to, it would do some humans good to eliminate at least one source that is easy to eliminate.

4/30/2009 10:36:46 PM

you haven't even touched the topic of all the new chemicals that are in tap water due to water treatment plants not being designed to handle modern wastes and pollutants

4/30/2009 10:43:53 PM

4/30/2009 10:44:28 PM

Quote :

"German mineral water comes from natural springs. So, to see if the estrogenic compounds were actually coming from the water itself, Wagner emptied the bottles and replaced the water with a pure snail medium and a tiny species of snail that is especially sensitive to estrogenic compounds. Eight weeks later, female snails living in plastic bottles had more than twice as many embryos inside their bodies compared to the glass-grown snails. "Something from the plastic," Wagner said, "must have leached out and changed the reproductive patterns of our snails." "

That did not rule out that it also comes from the mineral water. Yes, it helps add to the case of saying plastic causes it, but they never tested the water itself.

[Edited on April 30, 2009 at 11:28 PM. Reason : Yes I'm being nitpicky about their methods but if you're gonna do it, do it right.]

4/30/2009 11:27:51 PM

What about my brita filter? I use that to fill up reusable water bottles? ARE WE FUXORED?

4/30/2009 11:28:16 PM

^me too
I usually dump the bottled water into it so I can get cold water out... don't want to waste space in the fridge with MORE water.

4/30/2009 11:39:40 PM

wait, why bother getting bottled water if you're just dumping it in a brita pitcher? why can't you do the same with tap water?

5/1/2009 12:39:44 AM

not to get all hippy or anything

but bottled water is a horrible product
think of how much energy is used up transporting all that water around in trucks from bottling plants when you could just drink water out of your tap. not to mention all the waste they produce.
we have a brita pitcher at home (which i LOVE) and it has tripled the amount of water i drink daily. i just fill up my water bottle daily and carry it with me.
the water is cold and tastes fresh, and the pitcher wasn't expensive at all. we've had it for a month and still have half the life left on our filter.

5/1/2009 12:58:34 AM

isn't bottled water just tap water, anyway

5/1/2009 1:00:36 AM

i heard a lot of that bottled shit doesnt have flouride

5/1/2009 2:43:54 AM

^^^ damn i love my Brita pitcher

5/1/2009 3:30:24 AM

Yea, but make sure to invest in the replacement filters that they sell for those britas every few months or so depending on how much you drink. It's worth the money.

5/1/2009 7:59:36 AM

We actually went over this when the research came out in my Chem class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_plastic

Unfortunately, I knew this was going to turn into "bottled water bad" in the media. From my understanding, not many bottled drink manufacturers actually use PET plastics, so bottled water is just fine. Check the labels on your stuff, know what you're drinking out of.

5/1/2009 10:47:44 AM

I for one enjoy the estrogen boost. makes my tits perky.

5/1/2009 11:01:16 AM

Quote :

"buying bottled water is such a wasted of money anyway, i cant understand why people do it"

Me either. I bought a case from Sam's Club last year before a trip to the beach and have been stuck with half a case ever since. I figured it would be good to toss in the cooler at some point, but I have three or four Nalgene bottles that I use constantly so I always just fill them.

5/1/2009 11:04:11 AM

I heard about this ages ago. also...

Quote :

"you'll be fine so long as you don't leave bottled water in your car on a summer day and then drink out of it"

oops...I do that all the time.

5/1/2009 11:19:20 AM

I'm sitting here drinking out of a BPA bottle right now.

mmmmm, cancer

5/1/2009 11:21:11 AM

eh, I think the smell of Stainless Steal bottles while drinking is just weird.

5/1/2009 12:32:54 PM

OMG


NEXT WE WILL HAVE TO RE-PLUMB MOST EVERY HOME/BUILDING/FACILITY WATER SOURCE IN AMERICA DUE TO PLASTIC PIPES




GLASS DILDOS OR CANCER, YOU DECIDE AMERICA. YOU DECIDE.

5/1/2009 12:55:07 PM

What am I supposed to store water in for the coming apocalypse?

5/1/2009 1:54:38 PM

milk jugs, dur

5/1/2009 2:01:00 PM

psssssh. i don't use a filter.

I DRINK STRAIGHT OUT OF THE TAP YO.

5/1/2009 2:48:39 PM

I NOTICED THAT YOU'RE PRETTY GANGSTER

5/1/2009 2:52:22 PM

SO TUFF

5/1/2009 11:27:54 PM

I store bottles of tap water, with a little lemon juice, in my fridge in old "simply orange" orange juice bottles. I have several because I like them cold, and I usually drink one 59oz bottle in one setting. The bottom of the bottle says it is made of PET plastic soooooo, am i fucked or what.

seems like there is some new research each week about how something once common and benign is now instant DEATH!!!!!!!

I guess i will use milk jugs now, because they are HDPE. So I guess both BPA plastic and PETE are both plastics of DEATH now.

[Edited on May 2, 2009 at 3:02 AM. Reason : .]

5/2/2009 2:50:21 AM

^Aren't milk jugs higher capacity per shelf area in a fridge any way?

5/2/2009 3:21:16 AM

i guess so

5/2/2009 3:30:56 AM

Quote :

"psssssh. i don't use a filter. I DRINK STRAIGHT OUT OF THE TAP YO."

5/2/2009 9:15:30 AM

Also...Brita water filters don't do much of anything except make water "taste" better...activated carbon only "filters" the hard minerals that you can taste, not a bunch of other stuff it was never designed to trap

5/2/2009 10:03:18 AM

^And a lot of the bottled water is no different.

I pour tap into my brita, I don't buy bottled water unless I'm on the road and forgot to bring some.

5/2/2009 1:10:57 PM

^that's not the argument

The argument was "I use a brita water filter, therefore I'm drinking good water"

That's not really the case

Tap water, bottled water, brita filtered water...it's all water with pretyy much the same stuff in there and one isn't better or worse for you to drink

5/2/2009 2:10:42 PM

You really only have a problem when your co-worker sees you drink from a water fountain, says, "You don't want to drink that water." When you ask why, takes you next door to the refrigerator and pulls out a bin of orange ice cubes. Then fills a coffee carafe with water from the sink and it too is orange. It might not contain deuterium, but it was certainly heavy water.

5/2/2009 6:08:22 PM