AsianScientist (Aug. 21, 2015) – A team of researchers from Kaohsiung Medical University have found that replacing melamine tableware with steel versions can reduce melamine exposure. Their work has been published in Environmental Science and Technology.
In 2008, acute health effects of melamine overdose was brought to media attention due to the milk scandal in China. About 300,000 people and more than 50,000 babies were affected, causing public outcry. Although fears of acute melamine poisoning have since died down, melamine-containing tableware continue to expose many to low levels of melamine in daily life.
Melamine-formaldehyde resin is a popular material used to plastic tableware as it hardy and affordable. However, remnant melamine in the tableware from the manufacturing process slowly seeps into the hot food with prolonged use.
“[In a prior study], we found that participants who used melamine-made bowls to consume high-temperature noodle soup can excrete high amounts of melamine into the urine,” Dr. Wu Ming-Tsang, lead author of the study, told Asian Scientist Magazine.
“Because many people in Taiwan are eating out, we tried to find ways to encourage people to change their eating culture (like always carry stainless steel-made meal boxes when dining out) to decrease the external exposure from melamine tableware.”
To find out if a simple switch in melamine-containing tableware to stainless steel ones has an effect on melamine excreted in urine, the authors conducted a test by recruiting 16 healthy individuals from two university buildings.
They asked the subjects to follow either a control-control-intervention or control-intervention-intervention paradigm of tableware use. Control meaning the same use of melamine-containing tableware, while intervention is the use of stainless steel ones. Each step lasted for three days. They then collected their urine samples for nine days over the change in tableware use.
“We found that the simple way of carrying stainless steel-made meal boxes when dining out can decrease ~40-90 percent external exposure from melamine tableware. This value is obtained by measuring the total urinary melamine excretion among the participants,” explained Wu.
In another study by Wu and colleagues, it was shown that long-term, low dose exposure to melamine can result in renal stones and increase the early biomarkers of renal tubular injuries, which may cause renal failure. A simple change in tableware may go a long way to keep melamine exposure from the environment at the lowest.
The article can be found at: Wu et al. (2015) Behavioral Intervention and Decreased Daily Melamine Exposure from Melamine Tableware.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: Wu Ming-Tsang.
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