Are your dishes making you sick? A chemical called melamine
that's found in some dishware might raise your risk for kidney
stones, a small new study suggests. "Melamine is a chemical used
widely in industry and found in many household products," noted
one expert not connected to the study, Dr. Kenneth Spaeth. "For
consumers, one of the most common sources of exposure to
melamine is from kitchenware including plates, bowls, mugs,
etcetera, as melamine has long been known to migrate from these
into food," said Spaeth, who is director of the Occupational and
Environmental Medicine Center at North Shore University Hospital
in Manhasset, NY. He noted that both higher temperatures (from
hot soups, for example) or more acidic foods can encourage
melamine to contaminate food, especially in older or low-quality
kitchenware. The new Taiwanese study included 12 healthy men and
women who ate hot noodle soup from either a melamine or ceramic
bowl. Urine samples were collected from the participants for 12
hours after they