Assessment of dietary exposure to bisphenol A in the French population with a special focus on risk characterisation for pregnant French women

• 1498 solid and liquid samples were analysed for BPA and the most contaminated were canned food or food products from animal origin.
• The dietary exposure to BPA has been calculated for adults, children, infants and young children, and pregnant women.
• The risk has been assessed for pregnant women and some of them exceed the reference value.
• Three Scenarios were proposed to reduce the risk by acting on food packaging or on the intake of food from animal origin.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is used in a wide variety of products and objects for consumers use (digital media such as CD's and DVD's, sport equipment, food and beverage containers, medical equipment). Here, we demonstrate the ubiquitous presence of this contaminant in foods with a background level of contamination of less than 5 μg/kg in 85% of the 1498 analysed samples. High levels of contamination (up to 400 μg/kg) were found in some foods of animal origin. We used a probabilistic approach to calculate dietary exposure from French individual consumption data for infants under 36 months, children and adolescents from 3 to 17 years, adults over 18 years and pregnant women. The estimated average dietary exposure ranged from 0.12 to 0.14 μg/kg body weight per day (bw/d) for infants, from 0.05 to 0.06 μg/kg bw/d for children and adolescents, from 0.038 to 0.040 μg/kg bw/d for adults and from 0.05 to 0.06 μg/kg bw/d for pregnant women. The main sources of exposure were canned foods (50% of the total exposure), products of animal origin (20%) and 30% as a background level. Based on the toxicological values set by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) for pregnant women, the risk was non negligible. Thus, we simulated scenarios to study the influence of cans and/or food of animal origin on the BPA-related risk for this specific population.