Breakthroughs Today

It is wiser to avoid taking in bisphenol A (BPA) through food than wait for a human study that proves it definitely toxic. At the same time, it is also to our advantage as consumers to know which plastics to avoid as food containers simply because it contains BPA, or at least used it in its manufacturing process. EARLY this year we knew of the piece of legislation—Senate Bill 3121—that Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago submitted for deliberation that aimed to prohibit the use of plastics containing BPA in manufacturing baby products. But like diseases and drugs, plastics are not created equal. There are plastics that are not manufactured in a way that it becomes likely for them to contain BPA. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS) identified these plastics as those “marked with recycle codes 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.” It also noted that since 1957, BPA has been used to manufacture hard plastic food containers such as baby bottles and reusable cups, not to

The last thing I expect that can be cancer producing is the caramel color I used to think to come only from heated table sugar. But it turned out I was darnly mistaken. EARLY last March news broke on the Philippine airwaves (through two of the country’s largest broadcasting outfits) over “cancer-producing” chemicals found in caramel, a coloring used in colas of at least two of the largest soda-makers worldwide with markets in the country. I thought there was only one caramel, that is, the caramelized sugar, that we can prepare at home using the same process used in manufacturing tira-tira (caramelized candy bars), which graders in the provinces used to love during recess. But the fact is far from that. There are four classes of caramel colors, says the European Union Scientific Committee for Food (SCF), the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), and the Nordic Council of Ministers (TemaNord). Class I is... [ READ MORE ] This article appears i

THE INFANT AND Pediatric Nutrition Association of the Philippines (IPNAP), a lobby group representing multinational manufacturers of infant-nutrition products in the country such as Abbott Laboratories, Fontera Brands, MeadJohnson Nutrition, Nestle and Wyeth, had questioned on 21 December 2011 the implementing rules that the Department of Health (DOH) drafted for Executive Order 51 (EO51), otherwise known as the Milk Code, that sought to regulate false health claims and attractive marketing strategies to promote milk-replacement products that undermine the government's program promoting breastfeeding among Filipino mothers. But the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court ruled that DOH has all the right to establish implementing rules being the sole government authority tasked in implementing the Milk Code.  This development came after the results of the Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) study in 2008 showed last year that the Philippines had a very week breastfe

A lot of things happen beyond the reach of the human senses, especially the eyes. There is the world of the minute organisms--bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi--whose existence can only be taken as true from the pronouncements of those who have studied this world. And there is also the world of the inanimate chemicals, whether biological or synthetic. Both these worlds can hold as in great awe when we happen to watch these ourselves. These microcosm too can provide us a danger that we may never suspect. And example to that is what bisphenol A (BPA) provides to infants... and even to adults as well. PD James wrote in his 2001 novel, Death in Holy Orders: “Much of the world’s grief was caused by people who claimed that they were only doing their duty.” That is utterly true for those soldiers who had to fight an oppressive war (their superiors ordered them so) or to engineers who formulate small but poisonous compounds to human foods either to save on the cost of materials

At different conditions, things that are harmless can be so badly destrusteive. Escherechia coli is one of these.  THE bacteria we call Escherichia coli is not entirely, or perhaps normally, an enemy of the human body. Around 0.1 percent of the normal bacterial flora in the human intestines is E. coli. The bacteria enter, and then colonize, the newly born child’s gut within 40 hours of birth. It enters the body with the food or water or with persons handling the child. Then it adheres to the mucus of the large intestine. In a matter of speaking, it so abounds in nature no one can practically avoid getting it. E. coli is also useful in producing vitamin K2. K2 is a member of the vitamin K group of fat-soluble vitamins that is involved in bone metabolism. Because of this, decreased level of normal flora in the gut because of broad-spectrum antibiotic use heightens the risk for K2 deficiency. Vitamin K1 is active more in enhancing blood coagulation. It is this vitami