What began as an urban legend back in 2007 appears to have brought rise to some serious concerns about plastic water bottles and the possible dangers of drinking water from them.

The initial urban legend began as an email rumor that drinking bottled water that had been left in a car would lead to the release of toxins into the water, which in effect could lead to breast cancer. The letter was passed around through emails, and later discovered as a hoax. Or was it?

While the original letter was not backed by any real research or a doctor, some verified studies have resulted since that initial release, and one conducted in Europe has raised doubts on the safety of drinking bottled water.

Chemicals, known as “endocrine disruptors,” have the potential to interfere with estrogen and other reproductive hormones in the human body. Currently, the authors of this study express more research is needed to determine if, or to what extent, this poses an actual health risk to humans.

The New Zealand mud snail was used to test for levels of toxins. The snail was bread in both glass and plastic mineral water bottles – consisting of 20 different brands. What were the results?

While researchers found more than double the number of embryos in plastic bottles compared with glass bottles, surprisingly both types of bottles showed a significant upswing in hormonal activity.

Authors of the study believed they were able to identify xenohormone (man-made hormone) as the culprit which is spread by plastic packaging and can affect many different consumer edibles.

Our findings provide an insight into the potential exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals due to unexpected sources of contamination.

While plastics used in the United States are currently managed by the FDA and EPA regulators, trace amounts of potentially hazardous elements are not non-existent.

Research continues.