DON'T DRINK THE WARM WATER
Americans can take a
warning from a University of Florida study of bottled water in China ─ don’t
drink the liquid if you’ve left it somewhere warm for a long time.
Plastic water bottles
are made from polyethylene terephthalate. When heated, the material releases
the chemicals antimony and bisphenol A, commonly called BPA.
While the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration has said BPA is not a major concern at low levels found
in beverage containers, it continues to study the chemical’s impacts. Some
health officials, including those at the Mayo Clinic, say the chemical can cause
negative effects on children’s health.
And antimony is
considered a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer,
part of the World Health Organization.
UF soil and water
science professor Lena Ma led a research team that studied chemicals released
in 16 brands of bottled water kept at 158 degrees Fahrenheit for four weeks,
what researchers deemed a “worst-case scenario” for human consumption.
Of the 16 brands, only
one exceeded the EPA standard for antimony and BPA. Based on the study, storage
at warm temperatures would seem to not be a big problem, Ma said. But she said
more research is needed to know if other brands are safe.
Ma’s study found that
as bottles warmed over the four-week period, antimony and BPA levels increased.
“If you store the
water long enough, there may be a concern,” said Ma, an Institute of Food and
Agricultural Sciences faculty member who has a research program at Nanjing
University in China.
The UF scientist
warned against leaving bottled water in a hot garage for weeks on end or in
your car all day during the summer.
Because of what Ma
calls cultural differences and because Chinese citizens have less faith in
their tap water, some leave bottled water in their car trunks for weeks. China
consumed 9.6 billion gallons of bottled water in 2011, making that country the
commodity’s largest market.
By comparison,
Americans drank 9.1 billion gallons of bottled water that year, according to
the International Bottled Water Association. While most Americans don’t store
bottled water in their cars for extended periods, they often keep it there for
a day or two. Drinking that water occasionally won’t be dangerous, but doing so
regularly could cause health issues, she said. And it’s not just water
containers that merit more study, Ma said.
“More attention should
be given to other drinks packaged with polyethylene terephthalate plastic, such
as milk, coffee and acidic juice,” she said. “We only tested the pure water. If
it is acidic juice, the story may be different.”
Although not part of
the study, Ma touts tap water over bottled water. Both are regulated by the
federal government, tap by the EPA and bottled by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration.
The study is published
in this month’s edition of the journal Environmental Pollution.
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