Levels of Bisphenol A in Canned Soft Drink Products in Canadian Markets

The method developed previously for the determination of bisphenol A (BPA) in liquid infant formula was adapted and validated for determination of BPA in soft drink products. This method was based on solid phase extraction and derivatization with acetic anhydride followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry in selected-ion monitoring mode. The average method detection limit was 0.045 mu g/L for a 10 mL sample. The average extraction recoveries were 101 and 99.9% obtained with seven different soft drink products spiked with BPA at 0.5 and 2.5 mu g/L, respectively. Good repeatability of the method was observed with replicate analyses of seven different soft drinks; relative standard deviations ranged from 1.3 to 6.6%. This method was used to analyze samples of 72 canned soft drink products for BPA. Except for three products from which BPA-d16 could not be recovered at all due to interference of product compositions (e.g., quinine hydrochloride in tonic water), BPA was detected in samples of all the other products at levels ranging from 0.032 to 4.5 mu g/L. About 75% of the products had BPA levels of < 0.5 mu g/L, and 85% of the products had BPA levels of < 1 mu g/L. Exposure to BPA through consumption of canned soft drink products is low; dietary intake of BPA was estimated at 0.027 mu g/kg of body weight/day on the basis of the consumption of one canned soft drink with the highest BPA level (4.5 mu g/L) for an adult with a 60 kg body weight, well below the provisional tolerable daily intake of 25 mu g/kg of body weight/day established by Health Canada.