Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) stay in the environment and food sources because they have the same qualities that make them useful for consumer products like nonstick coating and stain-resistant materials. People are exposed to a lot of PFAS because these chemicals are used and stay in the environment for a long time.

In our white paper, “PFAS Treatment and Human Health: A State-of-the-Science Report to Help Understand Human Exposures to PFAS and Related Health Concerns,” the article go into detail about this topic. 

Make sure to get the white paper so you can read the study regarding PFAS Treatment.

  1. Here are the five most important things you should remember after reading our preliminary research on how PFAS affects people’s health.
  2. Most people have at least one PFAS compound in their blood, most commonly perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS). In a group of people, the average amount of PFOA in their blood is 1.56 parts per billion (ppb), while the average amount of PFOS is 4.72 ppb.
  3. Depending on the type of PFAS, it can take anywhere from a few days to more than 15 years for the amount of PFAS in human tissue to drop to half of what it was in the beginning. Compounds with longer chain lengths are the most stable ones.
  4. A lot of research has been done to learn more about the possible negative health effects of PFOA, PFOS, and a few other chemicals. There are still many things we don’t know about the whole group, which has more than 4,000 different chemicals.
  5. People are most likely exposed to PFAS when they eat, touch their skin, or breathe them in. Children and babies can also be exposed in other ways, such as by drinking breast milk, being exposed while still in the womb, or crawling.

The most researched and written about health effects are those on the immune system, development or reproduction, the liver, hormones, and on cancer. Many different health problems can happen, from asthma to testicular cancer.

The scientific community needs to do more work to fully understand how PFAS affect health and how people are exposed to these chemicals. Filling in these knowledge gaps is important if we want to help keep people healthy.

In exposure assessments, studies of environmental exposures in water, soil, and air were mapped against farming activities and consumer goods. Include more PFAS and their recently made replacements, like perfluorobutanesulfonic acid and GenX compounds (PFBS). Exposure studies look at all possible routes of exposure in several cohorts of people from different groups with different levels of exposure. 

Conclusion

There are a lot of groups like Membrane Systems Australia out there that are working to fill in these big gaps in scientific knowledge about PFAS and how it affects human health. We offer a wide range of services and experts, from high-quality laboratory analysis to the collection of health-related data and expert analysis, all to learn more about how people are exposed to PFAS and how this affects their health.