Investigating hsCRP as a clinical inflammation marker for human Bisphenol A food contamination offers protocol suggestions for conducting replicable, causal dietary intervention studies

Perdue, W. L.; Reus, V. I.; Yeamans-Irwin, R. L.

Dietary intervention studies thus far have failed to be replicable or causal. The results therefore have failed to provide clinicians and the general public with consistent and useful information on which to base reliable food-related health decisions. This is particularly relevant regarding plastic-derived chemicals (PDCs) such as Bisphenol A now that the federal CLARITY-BPA program has failed to achieve scientific consensus. Investigators propose a novel human dietary protocol that is both replicable and causal, based upon BPA's demonstrated inflammatory effects in humans. This first-of-a-kind dietary intervention study explores a potential causal relationship between human serum levels of BPA and High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hsCRP) a proven clinical indicator of inflammation. Investigators used the equivalent of a USDA-defined typical diet followed by a PDC-reduced diet to compare blood levels of hsCRP. This proof-of-concept investigation is the first to use an easily accessible medically-accepted clinical laboratory test to directly measure human health effects of PDC reduction. Unexpected new complications discovered during the investigation indicate that these results may yet be inconclusive for direct causal relationship. However the novel lessons and techniques developed as a result of those discoveries offer further specific and improved methods and best practices that can enable future dietary interventions to produce replicable causal results.