http://www.deakin.edu.au/news/2014/290414bisphenolA.php

Study finds more reason to review the use of BPA in Australia
29 April 2014

A new study provides further evidence of the damaging effects of BPA,
the controversial compound used in the manufacture of plastic food and
drink containers that is banned in most parts of the world but allowed
in Australia.

Deakin University scientists are part of the international research team
led by Professor Vincent Laudet at the Institute of Functional Genomics
of Lyon (ENS de Lyon, CNRS, France) that has discovered a new pathway
for bisphenol A (BPA) to spread through the body via a protein known as
ERRy (estrogen-related receptor), which plays an important role in
metabolism. The involvement of ERRy adds weight to the possibility that
BPA could be a cause of obesity and diabetes.

?We know that there are links between BPA exposure and diabetes and
obesity but we do not know how it works. With what we have discovered
about this new receptor we may well have found the missing link,? said
Dr Yann Gibert, a researcher with Deakin?s Metabolic Research Unit.

?Before now it was believed that BPA only affected estrogen receptors
and therefore only had an impact on this hormone function. Now that we
have found this new receptor we can expand the targets of further
research to developmental effects and metabolism.?

The results of this study, published in The Journal of the Federation of
American Societies for Experimental Biology, add to the growing
international evidence of the health risks associated with BPA, that
include breast cancer, reproductive disorders, brain function and inner
ear development.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1096/fj.13-240465