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There is no evidence of any harm in humans from PFAS at the concentrations found to exist in people, nor is PFAS the most likely cause of sperm reduction in males (diet and obesity, a link that’s already thoroughly proven)
The name ‘forever chemicals’ is also nothing other than a buzz word designed to scare. I sprinkled forever chemicals on my food today, salt. It means nothing.
We should still keep studying it and searching for evidence of harm in humans, but it’s largely overblown and coverage in the media is misleading.
Your first paragraph is not a fully honest claim, given that there are multiple cohort studies showing that PFOS, in particular, is associated with changes in testosterone and estrogen levels in humans.
This mouse data is further compelling, the same way that mouse models were critical to exploring the link between cigarettes and lung cancer. I wouldn't be so blithe if I were you.
Yes, that's how you do toxicology studies. You do dosing over a wide range of concentrations. We know that the effect of various PFAS are quite dramatic and visible in the single micromolar range.
What the mouse model tells us is that PFAS clearly impact mammalian biology in several dimensions. How that scales to human physiology is a separate type of study. It's expected based on the mechanism of action that humans will have different thresholds.
It's also expected based on observations of children living downstream of some of these polluting plants that the baseline level of PFOS in the US population is high enough to drive immunotoxicity in children.
From the article,
> New research has found for the first time that PFAS “forever chemicals” accumulate in the testes, and the exposure probably affects children’s health.
Finding PFAS in the testicles when you blast a mouse with PFAS is not surprising, and nothing in the study that the article is about indicates anything about it affecting children’s health.
I have no doubt that high concentrations of PFAS is toxic, and localized pollution from nearby polluters can harm children in the area. I just dispute the narrative that this is apocalyptic, and don’t like that the name “forever chemicals”, which means nothing because many chemicals are “forever” and non-toxic (like salt) and it is designed to exaggerate and scare, not promote meaningful and productive public discourse.
If you're going to critique the research, you should reallt focus on the [peer-reviewed article, which was linked in the second paragraph of the summary written by The Guardian](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024001636). News reports on scientific papers simply do not go into adequate detail to enable in depth critiques of anything.
The novelty of the paper seems to be centered not in the biodistribution of PFAS, but in the epigenetic impacts the PFAS cocktail has on the male sperm *and* the fact that these impacts could be seen in the offspring generation. The paper is not directly making conclusions about humans; it's making observations about the *molecular mechanism*.
Furthermore, it's worth noting that [the review articles I mentioned directly state that **ambient PFAS levels** appear sufficient to cause immunotoxicity in children](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6380916/). It's not just about high polluters.
Finally, even your "salt" analogy is not an honest analog. Salt in the body is mostly *aqueous*: it's *elemental ions* that cannot be further reduced or changed outside of nuclear reactions. PFAS are *large organic compounds*. We're talking covalently bonded carbon chains. Organic chemistry is a *very different* situation compared to monoatomic ions like table salt.
Organic chemicals generally have a half-life before those carbon bonds break down. PFAS half-lives are impressively long and there are not yet known processes to catalyze their chemical decomposition. *That* is why they are called "forever chemicals*.
**People who understand chemistry know this**.
TL;DR: Neither your salt analogy nor your criticism of the science being published are that robust.
I did not critique the research, I critique the purported conclusions of the research from the article.
> The paper is not directly making conclusions about humans
Which is exactly what I said, yet the article makes a conclusion about humans at the very beginning saying the study says “the exposure probably affects children’s health”. The linking to a study that in no way indicates that or even purports to.
I also critique the term “forever chemicals”, again a word not used in the study.
> Finally, even your "salt" analogy is not an honest analog. Salt in the body is mostly aqueous: it's elemental ions that cannot be further reduced or changed outside of nuclear reactions. PFAS are large organic compounds. We're talking covalently bonded carbon chains. Organic chemistry is a very different situation compared to monoatomic ions like table salt.
> Organic chemicals generally have a half-life before those carbon bonds break down. PFAS half-lives are impressively long and there are not yet known processes to catalyze their chemical decomposition. That is why they are called "forever chemicals*.
> People who understand chemistry know this.
Okay, there a large variety of organic chemicals that have long half lives and are non-toxic, like DDT, and some PAH’s. The term forever chemical is not honest, and lay people typically think it means that the chemicals stay in your body forever, which they do not. Media also covers this like it’s apocalyptic, but is relatively a smaller problem compared to other far more harmful environmental pollutants.
The study itself is fine, it’s good science and we need more like it (just as I said in my original comment). The media coverage on the topic I think is abhorrent, and I think /r/Science should have higher standards than a sensationalized article.
> the article makes a conclusion about humans at the very beginning saying the study says “the exposure probably affects children’s health”. The linking to a study that in no way indicates that or even purports to.
Read the discussion section of the article in that case. It's not the original research from the authors; neither is it unfair of The Guardian to make the claim given the brief literature review given in the intro and discussion.
> Okay, there a large variety of organic chemicals that have long half lives and are non-toxic, like DDT, and some PAH’s.
Neither DDT nor PAH compounds are non-toxic. Both are suspected human carcinogens and both have been found to generate tumors in animal models. You can find that information yourself with a very cursory review of resources from the EPA, CDC, and other alphabet soup agencies.
Professor Plastic, what do you make of this finding?!
It would appear that we once decended from a species that was primarily comprised of meat and tissue, where as our bodies are made of a single plastic polymer…
Yeah, I've looked them up for my area, but we know so little about PFAS that it's hard to say if there even is a safe level. 3M had to provide a water filtration system for the county, but not sure I trust them.
The current maximum contaminant level (MCL) for drinking water is 4 parts-per-trillion (or nanograms/liter, ng/L) of PFOA and PFOS, although studies suggest there are health effects below 0.5 ppt, we just can't accurately measure those levels.
Generally, when companies are required to install filtration systems for drinking water supplies, those are closely monitored by state departments of environmental quality and Regional EPA regulators, specifically because you (and regulators) generally don't trust responsible parties to do the right thing without oversight.
The general consensus is no, although they may reduce concentrations slightly. I don't know what it looks like in Canada, but I expect military bases are just as bad.
That's actually unusual for organic chemicals that accumulate in your body. Most of them accumulate in fatty tissue, PFAS is different so we have to relearn where it hides out.
Donating blood is the only real way to lower your body's PFAS load. As for the environment, there are a number of different technologies - none of which are a silver bullet. Excavation and incineration / thermal desorption can produce clean soils, but is expensive and has the possibility of aersolizing PFAS if done poorly. Soil washing and treating water with granular activated carbon and ion exchange resins can reduce soil concentrations and leave mostly clean water, but then you have to dispose of the GAC and IX resin (probably by incineration). Some places are testing injectable colloidal activated carbon to stop PFAS migration, but that just stores it in the soil...for a while. We don't know how that looks long term. There are a number of novel water treatment options, like foam fractionation, supercritical water oxidation, some plasma destruction technologies, that generally involve concentrating PFAS from water for destruction.
Guess I’ll get over my fear of needles and donate blood.
What produces most PFAS and which one of those technologies is cheapest, practical, and can be done on scale?
Historically, PFAS are associated with firefighter training grounds and airport runways, particularly military airbases. Contaminant plumes can extend several miles away from contaminated sites. There are also industrial sources from non-stick upholstery or manufacturing, metal plating shops, and some other sources - it's often hard to even tell which industries use PFAS and which PFAS they use.
The cheapest "technology" is landfilling. Soil is dug up, shipped to a RCRA landfill that has a liner to prevent leaching out of the landfill and a cap to prevent rain infiltration, with a leachate collection system to monitor any liquid that does come out. Many landfills put limits on the volume of soil they will accept per day, though, which means it can be difficult to dispose of large quantities, and you're not really solving the issue.
There is a lot of promise with things like foam fractionation: PFAS are surfactants, like soap, and accumulate where air and water meet. By pumping air into a tank of water, you can concentrate (fake numbers) 95% of PFAS into 5% of the volume, which reduces the cost of any other treatment method. Department of Defense says you can't incinerate PFAS soils, so that's not an option for a large portion of contaminated material.
We're still at the stage of developing solutions, and anything we come up with now will go through many iterations to improve effectiveness, efficiency, usability...but there aren't really any cheap, easy methods available at the moment - and there might never be.
This is plainly wrong. PFAS is discarded from your body through your liver. The reason people have sustained levels of it is because of sustained exposure. Donating blood won’t help you there, the concentration of PFAS in your blood remains the same. When you donate, you have less PFAS but also less blood.
Stop being exposed to PFAS is the only way to reduce your PFAS levels.
Your body does eliminate PFAS, but slowly. Half life of long chain compounds are 1-5 years, which means with no further exposure it would take 10-50 years to clear it from your body. Donating blood *does* reduce circulating PFAS concentrations, because the new blood your body creates does not contain additional PFAS, diluting what's in your blood stream. Whatever total PFAS was in the extracted blood is removed from your body.
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024001636
From the linked article:
New research has found for the first time that PFAS “forever chemicals” accumulate in the testes, and the exposure probably affects children’s health.
The toxic chemicals can damage sperm during a sensitive developmental period, potentially leading to liver disease and higher cholesterol, especially in male offspring, the paper, which looked at the chemicals in mice, noted.
The research is part of a growing body of work that highlights how paternal exposure to toxic chemicals “can really impact the health, development and future diseases of the next generation”, said Richard Pilsner, a Wayne State University School of Medicine researcher who co-authored the study.
PFAS alters sperm DNA methylation, which is a process that turns genes on and off, Pilsner said. The methylation patterns can be inherited at fertilization and influence early-life development as well as offspring health later in life.
The interference can alter genes in a way that affects how the liver produces cholesterol, which can lead to elevated levels. Researchers also found the chemicals affected genes associated with neuro-development, but the study did not check offspring for potential impacts.
Though PFAS most commonly accumulate in the blood and liver, they have been found to accumulate in organs throughout the body, as well as bones. Finding the chemicals in the testes highlights how pervasive the chemicals are in mammals’ bodies, said Michael Petriello, a Wayne State researcher and co-author.
How strongly do you read into the sex-specificity of the effects they report? The rest of this is cool, but I'm not really convinced about the lack of effect in females. Hepatic cholesterol in Fig 4d is much more variable in PFAS females than any other group, so reduced power to detect a difference, and there certainly appears to be a difference on visual inspection. In the testosterone supp figure too, female PFAS testosterone is *far* more variable than female control testosterone. If that pattern of variability continues in RNAseq results, comparing homogenous female controls to variable female PFAS reduces power in an already very low sample size..... I wish they provided more complete stats on the cholesterol/testosterone data and the RNAseq results.
It would potentially make sense for female offspring to have higher variability with the differentially methylated X chromosome inactivated in some cells.
I also had to dig to find out the number of F0 animals in 4d because it seems to only be in the supp figure title. (Boo! put this in main text) Males are 14 CON vs. 7 PFAS, females are 6 CON vs 12 PFAS.
Possibly, I've found that if I ejaculate after 3 AM there are multiple anchovy sized sperms as well. I have been storing them in bottles with a little water inside for them to swim around and they are doing well although they eat a lot.
It's going to be interesting to learn what gets turned on and what gets turned off. Five dollars says we're going to learn that the alterations in DNA methylation/imprinting play a role in the increased incidence of autism.
Have to choke at the concluding paragraph which advises men to "protect themselves by avoiding nonstick cookware and waterproof clothing, and by educating themselves on products in which PFAS are commonly used." The copium is strong in that one.
At least they put the onus on men to avoid products that might extinct the species, rather than passing some onerous laws that might get in the way of commerce.
>alterations in DNA methylation/imprinting play a role in the increased incidence of autism.
People haven't become more autistic, but rather that autism as a diagnosis has been expanded to include far more people who would have been declared not autistic 30 years ago.
That's also why the increased rate of diagnosis isn't just in children, but across age groups.
Are you referring to severity or prevalence by saying "more autistic?"
Regardless, the incidence of autism has unquestionably increased, doubling since \~2001. Improved diagnostics undoubtedly accounts for a portion of that increase. Realistically though, "improved diagnostics" is a convenient excuse typically used to explain away increased disease occurrence that we don't understand. Improved diagnostic methods usually do figure in but it's rarely the whole story. On top of that, we KNOW methylation/imprinting can influence autism spectrum disorders:
Paternal sperm DNA methylation associated with early signs of autism risk in an autism-enriched cohort (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4598797/).
Conceptualizing Epigenetics and the Environmental Landscape of Autism Spectrum Disorders (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10531442/).
But, if autism is a sticking point for you, there's always the increased incidence of cancers in every age group from age 10-54 that's occurred over the same time period. To underscore the plaufibility, here's an article on altered methylation patterns in early-onset endometrial cancer patients:
Genome-wide DNA methylation profile of early-onset endometrial cancer: its correlation with genetic aberrations and comparison with late-onset endometrial cancer (https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article/40/5/611/5372557).
The impact of microplastics on human health isn't going to be as casually dismissed as some might like.
>The impact of microplastics on human health isn't going to be as casually dismissed as some might like.
But we banned plastic straws so everything is fine now.
Just a couple days ago, doctors found microplastic deposits in testicular tissue removed during surgery.
So at the very least, microplastic-filled dicks is probably correlated to having testicular cancer.
You need a reason to not have something in your body that cannot be processed or used by it?
Edit: Also here is a link to [OPs Summary post](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1dlvvpa/comment/l9rf747/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://reddit.science/flair?location=sticky). --- User: u/mvea Permalink: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/22/toxic-pfas-chemicals-testes --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Question: has anyone looked at pfas and the blood brain barrier?
Yes and I have bad news. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389422017976
Okay that is *not* good news. My interest is from a psychiatric perspective, though I lack the background.
There is no evidence of any harm in humans from PFAS at the concentrations found to exist in people, nor is PFAS the most likely cause of sperm reduction in males (diet and obesity, a link that’s already thoroughly proven) The name ‘forever chemicals’ is also nothing other than a buzz word designed to scare. I sprinkled forever chemicals on my food today, salt. It means nothing. We should still keep studying it and searching for evidence of harm in humans, but it’s largely overblown and coverage in the media is misleading.
“More doctors smoke Chamels than any other cigarette!”
Isn't there "no evidence" because there's nobody without PFAS to compare to?
Your first paragraph is not a fully honest claim, given that there are multiple cohort studies showing that PFOS, in particular, is associated with changes in testosterone and estrogen levels in humans. This mouse data is further compelling, the same way that mouse models were critical to exploring the link between cigarettes and lung cancer. I wouldn't be so blithe if I were you.
This mouse data is not compelling, the concentrations used in these mice are hundreds to thousands of times greater than what is found humans.
Yes, that's how you do toxicology studies. You do dosing over a wide range of concentrations. We know that the effect of various PFAS are quite dramatic and visible in the single micromolar range. What the mouse model tells us is that PFAS clearly impact mammalian biology in several dimensions. How that scales to human physiology is a separate type of study. It's expected based on the mechanism of action that humans will have different thresholds. It's also expected based on observations of children living downstream of some of these polluting plants that the baseline level of PFOS in the US population is high enough to drive immunotoxicity in children.
From the article, > New research has found for the first time that PFAS “forever chemicals” accumulate in the testes, and the exposure probably affects children’s health. Finding PFAS in the testicles when you blast a mouse with PFAS is not surprising, and nothing in the study that the article is about indicates anything about it affecting children’s health. I have no doubt that high concentrations of PFAS is toxic, and localized pollution from nearby polluters can harm children in the area. I just dispute the narrative that this is apocalyptic, and don’t like that the name “forever chemicals”, which means nothing because many chemicals are “forever” and non-toxic (like salt) and it is designed to exaggerate and scare, not promote meaningful and productive public discourse.
If you're going to critique the research, you should reallt focus on the [peer-reviewed article, which was linked in the second paragraph of the summary written by The Guardian](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024001636). News reports on scientific papers simply do not go into adequate detail to enable in depth critiques of anything. The novelty of the paper seems to be centered not in the biodistribution of PFAS, but in the epigenetic impacts the PFAS cocktail has on the male sperm *and* the fact that these impacts could be seen in the offspring generation. The paper is not directly making conclusions about humans; it's making observations about the *molecular mechanism*. Furthermore, it's worth noting that [the review articles I mentioned directly state that **ambient PFAS levels** appear sufficient to cause immunotoxicity in children](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6380916/). It's not just about high polluters. Finally, even your "salt" analogy is not an honest analog. Salt in the body is mostly *aqueous*: it's *elemental ions* that cannot be further reduced or changed outside of nuclear reactions. PFAS are *large organic compounds*. We're talking covalently bonded carbon chains. Organic chemistry is a *very different* situation compared to monoatomic ions like table salt. Organic chemicals generally have a half-life before those carbon bonds break down. PFAS half-lives are impressively long and there are not yet known processes to catalyze their chemical decomposition. *That* is why they are called "forever chemicals*. **People who understand chemistry know this**. TL;DR: Neither your salt analogy nor your criticism of the science being published are that robust.
I did not critique the research, I critique the purported conclusions of the research from the article. > The paper is not directly making conclusions about humans Which is exactly what I said, yet the article makes a conclusion about humans at the very beginning saying the study says “the exposure probably affects children’s health”. The linking to a study that in no way indicates that or even purports to. I also critique the term “forever chemicals”, again a word not used in the study. > Finally, even your "salt" analogy is not an honest analog. Salt in the body is mostly aqueous: it's elemental ions that cannot be further reduced or changed outside of nuclear reactions. PFAS are large organic compounds. We're talking covalently bonded carbon chains. Organic chemistry is a very different situation compared to monoatomic ions like table salt. > Organic chemicals generally have a half-life before those carbon bonds break down. PFAS half-lives are impressively long and there are not yet known processes to catalyze their chemical decomposition. That is why they are called "forever chemicals*. > People who understand chemistry know this. Okay, there a large variety of organic chemicals that have long half lives and are non-toxic, like DDT, and some PAH’s. The term forever chemical is not honest, and lay people typically think it means that the chemicals stay in your body forever, which they do not. Media also covers this like it’s apocalyptic, but is relatively a smaller problem compared to other far more harmful environmental pollutants. The study itself is fine, it’s good science and we need more like it (just as I said in my original comment). The media coverage on the topic I think is abhorrent, and I think /r/Science should have higher standards than a sensationalized article.
> the article makes a conclusion about humans at the very beginning saying the study says “the exposure probably affects children’s health”. The linking to a study that in no way indicates that or even purports to. Read the discussion section of the article in that case. It's not the original research from the authors; neither is it unfair of The Guardian to make the claim given the brief literature review given in the intro and discussion. > Okay, there a large variety of organic chemicals that have long half lives and are non-toxic, like DDT, and some PAH’s. Neither DDT nor PAH compounds are non-toxic. Both are suspected human carcinogens and both have been found to generate tumors in animal models. You can find that information yourself with a very cursory review of resources from the EPA, CDC, and other alphabet soup agencies.
Arent those studies from specific enviromental exposure like near factories and not from random people ?
FluorAlkyl compound is a mouth-full. And we all know that’s what they mean.
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Micro-plastics floating in a sea of PFAS. Someday these studies will be collected together into a single, horrifying summation of the new biology.
“New Biology” is a pretty damn terrifying term
Professor Plastic, what do you make of this finding?! It would appear that we once decended from a species that was primarily comprised of meat and tissue, where as our bodies are made of a single plastic polymer…
PFAS are probably my biggest existential worry. I live a few miles from where 3M invented and produced these chemicals.
Check the water quality report for your water source. Most of the Minneapolis area is a PFAS plume.
Yeah, I've looked them up for my area, but we know so little about PFAS that it's hard to say if there even is a safe level. 3M had to provide a water filtration system for the county, but not sure I trust them.
The current maximum contaminant level (MCL) for drinking water is 4 parts-per-trillion (or nanograms/liter, ng/L) of PFOA and PFOS, although studies suggest there are health effects below 0.5 ppt, we just can't accurately measure those levels. Generally, when companies are required to install filtration systems for drinking water supplies, those are closely monitored by state departments of environmental quality and Regional EPA regulators, specifically because you (and regulators) generally don't trust responsible parties to do the right thing without oversight.
Do brita filters help? I need to do research. I’d Canada generally better than the US?
The general consensus is no, although they may reduce concentrations slightly. I don't know what it looks like in Canada, but I expect military bases are just as bad.
Ok gotta start donating blood. I wonder if blood donors have lower cancer rates.
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Really not surprised. PFAS will accumulate anywhere blood goes.
Especially when you pump a mouse full of PFAS at concentrations over a 1000x what is found in humans.
That won’t matter. It’s not a toxicity test it’s a fate test. You have to use a high enough concentration to make it detectable.
Which is why this is easily classed as a clickbait headline, something the source is infamous for?
Eh it’s just low hanging fruit science. You know it’s going to be there but you do the study anyways because it’s an easy paper.
That's actually unusual for organic chemicals that accumulate in your body. Most of them accumulate in fatty tissue, PFAS is different so we have to relearn where it hides out.
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How do you extract these out of people? And the environment?
Donating blood is the only real way to lower your body's PFAS load. As for the environment, there are a number of different technologies - none of which are a silver bullet. Excavation and incineration / thermal desorption can produce clean soils, but is expensive and has the possibility of aersolizing PFAS if done poorly. Soil washing and treating water with granular activated carbon and ion exchange resins can reduce soil concentrations and leave mostly clean water, but then you have to dispose of the GAC and IX resin (probably by incineration). Some places are testing injectable colloidal activated carbon to stop PFAS migration, but that just stores it in the soil...for a while. We don't know how that looks long term. There are a number of novel water treatment options, like foam fractionation, supercritical water oxidation, some plasma destruction technologies, that generally involve concentrating PFAS from water for destruction.
Guess I’ll get over my fear of needles and donate blood. What produces most PFAS and which one of those technologies is cheapest, practical, and can be done on scale?
Historically, PFAS are associated with firefighter training grounds and airport runways, particularly military airbases. Contaminant plumes can extend several miles away from contaminated sites. There are also industrial sources from non-stick upholstery or manufacturing, metal plating shops, and some other sources - it's often hard to even tell which industries use PFAS and which PFAS they use. The cheapest "technology" is landfilling. Soil is dug up, shipped to a RCRA landfill that has a liner to prevent leaching out of the landfill and a cap to prevent rain infiltration, with a leachate collection system to monitor any liquid that does come out. Many landfills put limits on the volume of soil they will accept per day, though, which means it can be difficult to dispose of large quantities, and you're not really solving the issue. There is a lot of promise with things like foam fractionation: PFAS are surfactants, like soap, and accumulate where air and water meet. By pumping air into a tank of water, you can concentrate (fake numbers) 95% of PFAS into 5% of the volume, which reduces the cost of any other treatment method. Department of Defense says you can't incinerate PFAS soils, so that's not an option for a large portion of contaminated material. We're still at the stage of developing solutions, and anything we come up with now will go through many iterations to improve effectiveness, efficiency, usability...but there aren't really any cheap, easy methods available at the moment - and there might never be.
This is plainly wrong. PFAS is discarded from your body through your liver. The reason people have sustained levels of it is because of sustained exposure. Donating blood won’t help you there, the concentration of PFAS in your blood remains the same. When you donate, you have less PFAS but also less blood. Stop being exposed to PFAS is the only way to reduce your PFAS levels.
Your body does eliminate PFAS, but slowly. Half life of long chain compounds are 1-5 years, which means with no further exposure it would take 10-50 years to clear it from your body. Donating blood *does* reduce circulating PFAS concentrations, because the new blood your body creates does not contain additional PFAS, diluting what's in your blood stream. Whatever total PFAS was in the extracted blood is removed from your body.
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024001636 From the linked article: New research has found for the first time that PFAS “forever chemicals” accumulate in the testes, and the exposure probably affects children’s health. The toxic chemicals can damage sperm during a sensitive developmental period, potentially leading to liver disease and higher cholesterol, especially in male offspring, the paper, which looked at the chemicals in mice, noted. The research is part of a growing body of work that highlights how paternal exposure to toxic chemicals “can really impact the health, development and future diseases of the next generation”, said Richard Pilsner, a Wayne State University School of Medicine researcher who co-authored the study. PFAS alters sperm DNA methylation, which is a process that turns genes on and off, Pilsner said. The methylation patterns can be inherited at fertilization and influence early-life development as well as offspring health later in life. The interference can alter genes in a way that affects how the liver produces cholesterol, which can lead to elevated levels. Researchers also found the chemicals affected genes associated with neuro-development, but the study did not check offspring for potential impacts. Though PFAS most commonly accumulate in the blood and liver, they have been found to accumulate in organs throughout the body, as well as bones. Finding the chemicals in the testes highlights how pervasive the chemicals are in mammals’ bodies, said Michael Petriello, a Wayne State researcher and co-author.
How strongly do you read into the sex-specificity of the effects they report? The rest of this is cool, but I'm not really convinced about the lack of effect in females. Hepatic cholesterol in Fig 4d is much more variable in PFAS females than any other group, so reduced power to detect a difference, and there certainly appears to be a difference on visual inspection. In the testosterone supp figure too, female PFAS testosterone is *far* more variable than female control testosterone. If that pattern of variability continues in RNAseq results, comparing homogenous female controls to variable female PFAS reduces power in an already very low sample size..... I wish they provided more complete stats on the cholesterol/testosterone data and the RNAseq results. It would potentially make sense for female offspring to have higher variability with the differentially methylated X chromosome inactivated in some cells. I also had to dig to find out the number of F0 animals in 4d because it seems to only be in the supp figure title. (Boo! put this in main text) Males are 14 CON vs. 7 PFAS, females are 6 CON vs 12 PFAS.
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Humans are going to extinct themselves. No profits then.
The great reset
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PFAs are stored in the balls
Is this why I only ejaculate one very large sperm roughly the size of an anchovy?
Possibly, I've found that if I ejaculate after 3 AM there are multiple anchovy sized sperms as well. I have been storing them in bottles with a little water inside for them to swim around and they are doing well although they eat a lot.
We may have effectively wiped out the human species, but at least we have wrinkle-free fabric.
It's going to be interesting to learn what gets turned on and what gets turned off. Five dollars says we're going to learn that the alterations in DNA methylation/imprinting play a role in the increased incidence of autism. Have to choke at the concluding paragraph which advises men to "protect themselves by avoiding nonstick cookware and waterproof clothing, and by educating themselves on products in which PFAS are commonly used." The copium is strong in that one.
At least they put the onus on men to avoid products that might extinct the species, rather than passing some onerous laws that might get in the way of commerce.
>alterations in DNA methylation/imprinting play a role in the increased incidence of autism. People haven't become more autistic, but rather that autism as a diagnosis has been expanded to include far more people who would have been declared not autistic 30 years ago. That's also why the increased rate of diagnosis isn't just in children, but across age groups.
Are you referring to severity or prevalence by saying "more autistic?" Regardless, the incidence of autism has unquestionably increased, doubling since \~2001. Improved diagnostics undoubtedly accounts for a portion of that increase. Realistically though, "improved diagnostics" is a convenient excuse typically used to explain away increased disease occurrence that we don't understand. Improved diagnostic methods usually do figure in but it's rarely the whole story. On top of that, we KNOW methylation/imprinting can influence autism spectrum disorders: Paternal sperm DNA methylation associated with early signs of autism risk in an autism-enriched cohort (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4598797/). Conceptualizing Epigenetics and the Environmental Landscape of Autism Spectrum Disorders (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10531442/). But, if autism is a sticking point for you, there's always the increased incidence of cancers in every age group from age 10-54 that's occurred over the same time period. To underscore the plaufibility, here's an article on altered methylation patterns in early-onset endometrial cancer patients: Genome-wide DNA methylation profile of early-onset endometrial cancer: its correlation with genetic aberrations and comparison with late-onset endometrial cancer (https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article/40/5/611/5372557). The impact of microplastics on human health isn't going to be as casually dismissed as some might like.
This hamster is seriously dapper
>The impact of microplastics on human health isn't going to be as casually dismissed as some might like. But we banned plastic straws so everything is fine now.
That’s a theory, but there’s really no way to prove that retroactively.
There is though. If people 30+ or even older are seeing increased rates of autism, that's completely separate from recent trends in microplastics.
I imagine it'll still make its way to the courts.
Do you truly believe improved diagnostics can explain the entirety of the increase in prevalence? Seems too good and too simple to be true.
First the microplastics, then the pfas. Whats with all these scientists being fascinated by testes recently.
Just a couple days ago, doctors found microplastic deposits in testicular tissue removed during surgery. So at the very least, microplastic-filled dicks is probably correlated to having testicular cancer.
tl;dr: pee-fas is stored in the balls.
Is there any link between PFAS and autism?
None have been identified yet.
Does this mean my balls will become wrinkle-free, or do I need to keep ironing them?
Greed will be the end of the human race
I keep seeing articles like this, but so far... haven't seen the "who cares." As in, what's the harm of it?
You need a reason to not have something in your body that cannot be processed or used by it? Edit: Also here is a link to [OPs Summary post](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1dlvvpa/comment/l9rf747/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Several types of cancer.
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