Federal chemists have confirmed what everyone had expected: that if a bisphenol-A-based resin is used to line most food cans, there’s a high likelihood the contents of those cans will contain at least traces of BPA. A hormone-mimicking compound, BPA is the monomer — or chemical building block — used in making the resin. Earlier studies had shown that this resin tends to shed BPA.

In their new paper, Gregory Noonan, Luke Ackerman and Timothy Begley of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in College Park, Md., acknowledge that BPA had turned up in the limited studies that had sought it out. But those studies had tended to look at a narrow range of products, such as baby food, infant formulas or soft drinks — or to have assayed foreign foods.

“It was clear that there were no large scale studies of the U.S. market,” they note, “and that there were significant data gaps for highly consumed canned foods, such as chili, pastas and pork and beans.” So they focused their survey on the most widely consumed U.S. canned goods.

In a paper that has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the researchers now report finding BPA tainting 71 of the 78 canned goods they sampled — or slightly more than 90 percent. They also tested frozen green beans and peas that had been sold in plastic bags as a potential control. As expected, neither frozen veggie contained BPA.

The lowest concentration of BPA in canned foods — 2.6 parts per billion — occurred in a can of peas. But another can of the same vegetable contained BPA at 310 ppb. Tainting of green beans varied 30-fold (up to 730 ppb). Some foods, like pasta, pork and beans, chili, soups and fruits varied less, typically hosting BPA at levels of between 10 and 80 ppb.

Store brands were not necessarily more tainted than name brand products, the new data show, nor were organic foods reliably cleaner than conventional products. Bottom line, the FDA scientists observe: “There are few clear trends in the data.”

Moreover, they add, owing to the broad variation in concentrations witnessed here, comparing BPA data from overseas products to U.S. foods “is not overly informative.” Even over-the-border comparisons can be challenging. Canadian canned tuna hosted 9 to more than 500 ppb BPA, well in excess of the 4.5 to 17 ppb in U.S. tuna. The difference likely traces to the manufacturers’ use of different coatings.

It says it serves four, but it was SOOO yummy my husband and I ate it all! Note I substituted chinese noodles for brown rice and plan to try it over quinoa also in the near future.

Enjoy, so easy!

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups long-grain brown rice, rinsed

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3 cloves garlic, sliced

2 scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces, white and green parts separated

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (use less if you like less spicy)

8 ounces mushrooms, sliced

Salt and black pepper

One 14-ounce container firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes

1/2 pint grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

DIRECTIONS:
In a medium saucepan, combine the rice and 2 1/4 cups water over medium-low heat. Cover and cook until the water is absorbed, 40 to 45 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet, heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, scallion whites and crushed red pepper and stir until fragrant. Add the mushrooms and season with salt and black pepper. Cook until the mushroom liquid evaporates, about 3 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a plate.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil and the tofu to the pan and cook until golden on one side, then toss to brown throughout, about 3 minutes. Push the tofu to the side of the pan and add the tomatoes and oyster sauce. Cook until the tomatoes begin to soften, about 1 minute. Return the mushrooms to the pan and stir in the scallion greens. Serve with the rice

Most doctors have long advised their patients who take thyroid replacement hormone to take it first thing in the morning without food. It turns out that this is a mistake, or at least seems to be a mistake. A December 2010 paper suggests taking it before bed is more effective.
A number of years ago N. Bolk and colleagues at the Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, noticed several patients who appeared to respond better to thyroid hormone administered at night. They conducted a small pilot study in which they carefully tested thyroid blood values in 12 women who were taking their thyroid in the morning and then switched them to nighttime dosing for two months prior to retesting. Their conclusion, published in 2007, “l-thyroxine [T4] taken at bedtime by patients with primary hypothyroidism is associated with higher thyroid hormone concentrations and lower TSH concentrations compared to the same l-thyroxine dose taken in the morning.” [1]

No one believes little pilot studies, especially ones that rock accepted doctrine like this, so they ran a large double blinded placebo controlled crossover study. From April 2007 to November 2008, they enrolled 105 consecutive patients with primary hypothyroidism. For 6 months patients took a different pill morning and evening, one of which was placebo. After 3 months, the patients witched which pill they took in the morning. Results of this larger study were published in the December 2010 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Data from ninety of the patients who completed the trial were analyzed. Taking thyroid at night decreased TSH level by 1.25 mIU/L, increased free T4 level by 0.07 ng/dL and increased total T3 by 6.5 ng/dL. [2] Night time dosing seems to be clearly superior. So much so that I am wondering from where this idea of morning dosing originated. No doubt someone will do the necessary homework and tell us the answer in the near future.
There is a potential problem with this. If your TSH is in the 3-5.0 mIU/L range, it should not be a problem. If you have been taking thyroid medication in the morning, and your TSH is in our target range of between 1 and 2 mIU/L and you were to switch to evening dosing, you might need to decrease the amount of medicine you take.
This information should prompt an editorial on our easy assumption that standard medicine is evidence based. Suffice to say, much of what we assume to be based on scientific evidence, is still, more often than not, based on habit, tradition, circumstance and guesswork.

References:

[1] Bolk N, Visser TJ, Kalsbeek A, van Domburg RT, Berghout A. Effects of evening vs morning thyroxine ingestion on serum thyroid hormone profiles in hypothyroid patients. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2007 Jan;66(1):43-8.

[2] Bolk N, Visser TJ, Nijman J, Jongste IJ, Tijssen JG, Berghout A. Effects of evening vs morning levothyroxine intake: a randomized double-blin
d crossover trial. Arch Intern Med. 2010 Dec 13;170(22):1996-2003.