introduction: Ingestion exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) and its chemical analogues bisphenol F (BPF) and bisphenol S (BPS) is ubiquitous because of their widespread use in food packaging. BPA/BPF/BPS are endocrine disrupting chemicals posing a threat to human health because of their ability to mimic, block, and stimulate hormone systems in the body. Our research objective is to develop and test methods to identify dietary bisphenol exposure risk that can replace the cost and time intensive methods of 24-hour dietary recalls and urinary samples.
approach: Bisphenol exposure data was collected using: 1) the “Dietary Exposure Risk Survey”, a brief questionnaire identifying eating behaviors with high potential for BPA/BPF/BPS exposure, 2) a multiple- pass, interviewer-led 24-hour dietary recall supplemented with food packaging and preparation questions, and 3) a urine sample analyzed for BPA/BPF/BPS.
results: Preliminary results show that participants’ dietary behavior includes bisphenol exposing activities. 62.5% of participants eat canned food, 43.5% do not know if their cans are BPA-free, 50% microwave their food in plastic containers, and 78% eat multiple packaged foods per week.
When comparing our combined BPA/BPF/BPS urinary concentrations with our dietary survey results, we observed trends of higher BPA/BPF/BPS concentrations when participants reported higher frequency of microwaving food in plastic containers and higher frequency of drinking from plastic bottles.
Urinary BPA/BPF/BPS concentrations (ng/ml) were binned to three categories of exposure: low = < 1.2, medium = 1.2 - 3.85, and high > 3.85. A random forest algorithm using the dietary behavior questions as inputs could predict participant exposure group correctly 56% of the time, whereas randomly guessing would yield 33%.
discussion: Our results show the Dietary Exposure Risk Survey we developed is a promising alternative method to urinary samples to predict bisphenol exposure risk. In addition, our survey revealed educational opportunities on how to prevent BPA/BPF/BPS exposure.