Saturday, October 4, 2014

Side effects and Dangers of Brominated Vegetable Oil

Bewares…your favorite Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Fanta or others from Coke or Pepsi contains harmful Brominated Vegetable Oil, which causes some threatening diseases. Know about BVO dangers here, and just stay safe!

Millions of people love to drink cola and soda concoctions daily, but actually they are poisoned into a state of chronic worsen diseases. Warnings about the dangers of soft drink consumption came to us early in 1942, then why do we crave and guzzle them for over half a century? Special classes are sponsored to warn about the dangers of drugs, tobacco and alcohol…but dangers of soft drink consumption are being overlooked commonly. That’s really sad!!! Carbonated drinks are proven to be harmful for teeth and body in different ways, leading millions of its takers to the world obesity problem. And, the latest jeopardy is BVO. It is researched that BVO (Brominated Vegetable Oil) is found in nearly 10% of soda products, particularly the citrus flavored sodas. Unfortunately, this BVO is a chemical toxin and linked to some hazardous diseases and its common side effects are neurological impairment, thyroid problems, fertility issues and psychological symptoms. If you are addicted to drink cola and soda concoctions, must checkout BVO dangers given below, before taking your next sip of cola!
Brominated Vegetable Oil: BVO Side effects and Dangers
BVO is a processed vegetable oil that is created when vegetable oil is bonded to the element bromine. It is derivative of corn or soy. By nature, bromine is found in bromide salt and sea water. It is patented as a flame retardant, and the food industry uses it as an emulsifier that helps the citrus flavors mix better while making soft drinks. It helps keep the fruit flavoring equally distributed so the fruit flavoring won’t be separated. Actually, Bromine increases the weight of the oil and prevents the fruit flavoring of drinks from rising to the top of drink. As a result, the oil serves to keep fat-soluble citrus flavors in suspension, making drinks usually look hazy or cloudy. Finally, soft drinks get ready with better look and taste. It is also available in fire extinguishers and some pharmaceuticals, dyes, flameproofing agents and some water purification compounds.


Brominated vegetable oil is found in about 10 percent of drinks sold in the United States including Mountain Dew of PepsiCo; Powerade, Fanta Orange and Fresca of Coca-Cola; and Squirt and Sunkist Peach Soda from Dr Pepper Snapple Group. For making of soft drinks, the isolated version of bromine is used and main problem is that when bromine gets isolated, it becomes very toxic to the human body when inhaled or ingested.

BVO is much in the news when Mississippi teenager, Sarah Kavanagh, pointed Gatorade and Powerade brandline for selling drinks that could harm the bodies of their primary consumers: athletes in her online petition on Change.org. Her online petition went viral, collecting over 200,000 signatures. After this petition, companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi are compelled to take away BVO - a toxic chemical in their products through public pressure. And we all know that PepsiCo announced they were taking BVO out of Gatorade products this year.

But in fact, the idea of removing all synthetic chemicals from their products sounds impossible to Coke and Pepsi. After all, their products are full of artificial sweeteners, so they have to use emulsifier chemicals to prevent all their chemical ingredients from separating. Of course, there were announcements for the removal of BVO but actually, they plan to simply replace it with another synthetic chemical: sucrose acetate isobutyrate.

However studies to know the effects of BVO in animals and in humans are limited, they concluded BVO as a chemical toxin that buildups in fatty tissues of the body and stays over there, also rats that ingested big quantities of the substance in their diets developed heart lesions. Even they have linked BVO to neurological disorders, organ damage, reduced fertility, changes in thyroid hormones also puberty at an earlier age and cancer.

BVO dangers are the reasons why Europe, India and Japan have banned it as a food additive for soft drinks, however it is allowed in small amounts in soft drinks sold in the United States and Latin America. For more than three decades, use of Brominated vegetable oil in the United States has been debated.

Brominated vegetable oil dangers

When the BVO gets inside the body, it can displace iodine and so increase the risk of iodine deficiency, leading to the increased risk for cancer of the breast, thyroid gland, ovary and prostate -- cancers that found at alarmingly high rates today.
For proper thyroid function, Iodine is important. Because of this iodine deficiency, your thyroid gland can’t produce thyroid hormone. Even the names of the different types of thyroid hormone symbolize the number of iodine molecules attached, like T4 means 4 attached iodine molecules, and the biologically active form of the hormone T3 has 3 attached iodine molecules.
Here main danger of BVO is genetically modified organism (GMO). Mostly, BVOs in the US are made of corn and soy, which are the top GMO (genetically modified food) over there.

GMO is one of the most unsafe foods to your health as it can damage your DNA, causing all types of chronic health problems.
Next one is that it can increase the risk of neurodegenerative disease. A high level of BVO is very toxic to the central nervous system, so that it is linked to neurological disorders, like Alzheimer’s and Alexander disease. Being a central nervous system depressant, it triggers a number of psychological symptoms like severe paranoia and other psychotic symptoms. Also, this toxic chemical accumulate in your tissues and breast milk, resulting in a number of serious deceases.
Commons symptoms of BVO:
  • Headaches
  • Fatigue
  • Memory loss
  • Loss of appetite
  • Abdominal pain
  • Skin rashes and severe acne
  • Thyroid and reproduction problems
  • Neurological issues
  • Behavior problems
Furthermore, BVO can increase the risk of autoimmune disorders, obesity, and diabetes.
Here are also listed some researches and case-studies that can support in proving how much BVO is dangerous?
In one audio interview, physician Jorge Flechas reported that, between 1920 and 1960, at least 20% of all hospital admissions for "acute paranoid schizophrenia" were taken due to ingesting bromine-containing products.
In 1997, Davis - a doctor at the University of California - reported the case of a male patient who came to the emergency room with a raft of symptoms including headaches, fatigue, poor balance, loss of muscle coordination and memory. His condition worsened over time, and eventually he lost the ability to walk. A blood test found sky-high levels of bromide and the source is that man had been drinking between 2 to 4 liters of soda containing brominated vegetable oil every day before falling ill. Then, he was treated with dialysis to remove the bromide from his blood.
Another 1983 animal study found that rats receiving 1% BVO in their feed suffered impaired fertility, and at 2%, they became completely infertile.
In 2003, there was a case of a 63-year-old man developed ulcers on his swollen. His blood tests revealed his bromine level was about twice normal limits. The man admitted drinking about 8 liters of Ruby Red Squirt, which contains BVO, every day for several months. He was diagnosed with bromoderma, a rare skin hypersensitivity to bromine exposure. He asked to quit drinking the brominated soft drink and months later recovered.
In 2012 German scientists revealed that some US soft drinks contained BVO at around 8ppm. Based on they worked out that an average adult drinker got thousands of times more organobromine from the drinks compared to other sources, like flame retardants that leak into the environment.
Overall, it is believed that BVO can build up in the body and cause toxic effects when it is drunk in very high amounts over a long period of time. Zane Horowitz, medical director of the Oregon Poison Center, told Environmental Health News that "Any normal level of consumption of BVO would not cause any health problems - except the risk of diabetes and obesity from drinking that much sugar water."

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