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Yikes! There Are Hormones in My Bottled Water!

For scientists and physicians, the Internet has been both a blessing and a curse. Journal articles

are at our fingertips and information about virtually any subject is just a few keystrokes away. But

not all of the available information is reliable. A frightening amount of pseudo-scientific drivel

permeates the web and spreads like wildfire when attached to emails. Either we are warned about

some nasty chemical that is unraveling the very fabric of society, or we are alerted to the discovery

of some miraculous natural healing agent that can cure virtually any disease.

The warnings often begin with the phrase this is no joke, and then continue with some ghastly

revelation about the dangers of some substance in our daily life. Like plastic water bottles that

leach a dangerous hormone called diethylhydroxylamine (DEHA) into their contents to make people

feel younger and stimulate them to buy more bottled water. Where does the idea that bottled water

is laced with hormones come from? The essence of the message is as follows: the plastic used to

make these bottles contains a potentially carcinogenic element (something called

diethylhydroxylamine or DEHA) which leaches out of the plastic on repeated washing and

rinsing. Consumers are then warned that such water bottles should not be refilled but be

discarded after a single use.

The seed from which this story germinated can be traced to a scare circulating on the Internet

about the m igration of a chemical commonly referred to as DEHA into water from plastic water

bottles. Of course, DEHA is not an element, it is a compound. And in any case, the author of

this epic epistle has the wrong compound. Diethylhydroxylamine is indeed sometimes abbreviated

as DEHA, but it has nothing to do with plastic water bottles. The chemical in question is

diethylhexyladipate, commonly and perhaps confusingly, also abbreviated as DEHA. This is an

approved plasticizer, a substance added to certain plastics to make them soft and pliable.Furthermore, neither of the DEHAs is classified as a carcinogen. But there is yet a further

problem with the scare. While diethylhexyladipate is commonly used as an additive in certain

plastics, it is not an ingredient in the polyester used to make water bottles! Polyester is innately

flexible and does not require plasticizers.

So how did a compound that isnt even present in plastic bottles trigger an alarm? The scare

seems to have been spawned by an abstract of a talk given by a Masters student from the

University of Idaho at a scientific conference. Such abstracts are not subjected to peer review and

are not considered to be a form of scientific publication. The intent is that the information

presented will eventually be submitted as a paper to a journal where it will undergo appropriate

peer review by experts in that field of research. This never happened in this case, probably because

the study performed did not have the scientific rigor required for publication. The student

investigated contaminants in bottled water and found a number of organic compounds, including

diethylhexyladipate. Apparently unaware that this is not used in polyester bottles, the authorassumed it was leaching out of the plastic. Stimulated by this, the Idaho student examined a

variety of other plastic bottles and found DEHA in the water they contained leading to the

conclusion that migration of DEHA was not limited to polyester bottles alone and other bottles

may also pose a health hazard.

But a critical control experiment was never performed. Was there any DEHA in water stored in

glass bottles or in water that came from the tap water? The answer is yes. Because DEHA is a

ubiquitous plasticizer used in the manufacture of items ranging from toys to shower curtains, it

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shows up in trace amounts everywhere. You can find it in food, clothing and water. We know this

because t he Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research studied this issue

extensively. All sorts of water samples that had never been in contact with any plastic bottle

showed traces of DEHA! Whether the samples came from plastic bottles or glass bottles they

contained the inconsequential amount of about 0.01 to 0.05 parts per billion. The World Health

Organization has set a maximum of 80 ppb for DEHA in drinking water so there is simply no issue

here with plastic bottles. At least not as far as DEHA goes. There may be reasons not to refill

water bottles, but that has to do with possible bacterial contamination, not with the leaching of

diethylhexyladipate.

So far, so good. But what about the business of DEHA making people feel younger? Thats a

puzzler. But it can probably be traced to someones fingers dancing on the keyboard while they

were researching the DEHA-water bottle connection. A lit tle slip and they typed DHEA ins tead

of DEHA. All of a sudden, claims of the potential rejuvenating properties of

dehydroepiandrosterone began to frolic on the screen. A fountain of youth, many websites claim,

a superhormone! And what is this m iracle? DHEA is a naturally occurring compound

synthesized from cholesterol in the adrenal glands. Production peaks in the 20s and then declines

so that by the eight decade the amount of circulating DHEA is only 20% of that found during the

vigor of youth.

Reasonably, researchers began to explore the possibility that maintaining the DHEA in the blood at

levels found in young people may help avert some of the problems of aging. Animal studies showed

some intriguing results in terms of delaying cancer and the hardening of arteries. A widely

reported study in humans showed that taking 50 mgs of DHEA for three months resulted in an

improved feeling of well-being. And t hen there is the other side of the coin. Researchers worry

that DHEA being a relative of testosterone may increase the risk of prostate cancer in men and

cause facial hair growth in women. DHEA is illegal in Canada but can be freely sold as a dietary

supplement in the US. Curiously, people who would not consider taking prescription hormone

replacement therapy, uncritically jump on the DHEA bandwagon.

Obviously, DHEA is not t he same as DEHA, but neither substance is present in the polyester used

to make water bottles. Manufacturers are certainly not sneaking DHEA into the plastic in order to

increase sales by making people feel young. But it is interesting to explore how a collection of

scientific smidgens can be blended together into meaningless hodge-podge.

Print | posted on Sunday, March 13, 2011 11:28 PM

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