FACT SHEET ON BISPHENOL A - Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA)
August 2010
Compiled by Dr C Albrecht – Head of Research

• Bisphenol A (abbreviated BPA) is a high-production volume, artificial, industrial, manmade molecule that was first synthesised in 1891 by A.P. Dianin.1 It is an ever-present environmental contaminant with established endocrine disruptor properties

• It is a relatively small symmetric, organic compound (see below) with a molecular weight of 228. It is a white powder and surprisingly has been found to mimic the female hormone, oestrogen, by binding to the oestrogen receptor. It is one of the best examples of a so-called endocrine-disrupting compound (EDC) because it binds to oestrogenreceptors in the cell in a haphazard, uncoordinated way - disrupting the highly ordered working of the normal hormone, oestrogen, especially during pregnancy, and causing various health defects, i.e. it is a pseudo-oestrogen