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Medicine News Science Technology

Prescription Meds Get Trapped In Disturbing Pee-To-Food-To-Pee Loop (arstechnica.com) 134

Posted by BeauHD from the I-have-no-appetite dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A study published Tuesday in Environmental Science and Technology is the first to validate the long-held suspicion that pharmaceuticals may get trapped in infinite pee-to-food-to-pee loops, exposing consumers to drug doses with unknown health effects. In a randomized, single-blind pilot study, researchers found that anti-convulsive epilepsy drug carbamazepine, which is released in urine, can accumulate in crops irrigated with recycled water -- treated sewage -- and end up in the urine of produce-eaters not on the drugs. While the amounts of the drug in produce-eater's pee were four orders of magnitude lower than what is seen in the pee of patients purposefully taking the drugs, researchers speculate that the trace amounts could still have health effects in some people, such as those with a genetic sensitivity to the drugs, pregnant women, children, and those who eat a lot of produce, such as vegetarians. And with the growing practice of reclaiming wastewater for crop irrigation -- particularly in places that face water shortages such as California, Israel, and Spain --- the produce contamination could become more common and more potent, the authors argue.
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Prescription Meds Get Trapped In Disturbing Pee-To-Food-To-Pee Loop More

Prescription Meds Get Trapped In Disturbing Pee-To-Food-To-Pee Loop

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    • You want to distill it anyhow, just for the sake of extracting fertilizer.

    • Sure why not, most of the areas that are short on water have a lot of solar thermal energy available to drive such a distillation system and as a side effect you get to generate lots of kinetic energy in steam turbines, to drive electricity generators.
      • It's probably better to use some kind of decreased-pressure multi-stage system. i suspect the volumes and energies involved don't work well for some kind of open-loop thermal plant like what you suggest. Not to mention the fact that you don't need high-grade heat for this.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Distillation is prohibitively expensive and impractical at the necessary quantities, given current technology.

  • I swear officer Oby, your piss test is flawed. I don't do drugs.

  • Vegetarians at risk. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    > those who eat a lot of produce, such as vegetarians.

    Good thing I'm not a vegetarian then.

    • Re:Vegetarians at risk. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by guises ( 2423402 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @08:43PM (#51952921)
      Bleh. Wish the original paper wasn't paywalled, this vegetarian business doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you take that produce and feed it to animals, and then eat the animals, you should have at least as much exposure as from eating the produce straight. If the drug in question is one which bioaccumulates, then your exposure should be higher than it would be from eating the produce straight. It would be nice to see what the paper said specifically, rather than getting it second hand.

      • Re:Vegetarians at risk. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @08:53PM (#51952977) Homepage
        If the drug in question is one which bioaccumulates...

        And that's the big question, isn't it? I hope somebody's looking into it, because without knowing how much it accumulates in the animal's bodies we can't judge how much of a concern it is. And, even if it isn't, the animal's waste products are probably being used as fertilizer, sending it right back into whatever crops it's used on. I'm not an alarmist, but we clearly need to know more about this.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )

          And that's the big question, isn't it?

          Given that is accumulates in humans, and discharges into water, which bio accumulate it, one would presume it's prone to bio accumulation.

          • The fact that it bioaccumulates in humans suggests that it might in food animals as well, but doesn't prove it. And, the fact that it gets excreted by humans suggests (but doesn't prove) that it doesn't. Again, we don't know enough to judge how dangerous it is, but caution is certainly indicated, especially when you consider that young children may well be much more sensitive to this than adults.

          • Re:Vegetarians at risk. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by khallow ( 566160 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @09:54PM (#51953227)

            and discharges into water

            Which is a strong indication it does not bioaccumulate in humans. Another is that they use this chemical as a drug. A drug which bioaccumulates would quickly become a poison (eg, using mercury to treat syphilis) and would for one shot attempts at fixing illnesses not a long term medication for treating epileptic conditions.

            Now the human body is relatively good at dealing with toxins, so it may be that cows and whatnot might bioaccumulate this while humans do not. But I doubt that's happening.

      • Re:Vegetarians at risk. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @09:33PM (#51953151)

        If the drug in question is one which bioaccumulates

        Then the original patient wouldn't be whizzing so much of it out.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I'd be more worried about the antibiotic resistant bacteria in the meat you eat. Farmers often give animals low doses of antibiotics to fatten them up, but there is evidence that this causes the bacteria living in them to become resistant and cause human health problems when consumed.

        • It isn't just to fatten them up although it does help, close to 100lbs extra hanging weight according to the farmer I get mine from. When the cattle are walking around knee deep in their own filth pumping them full of antibiotics is necessary to keep them alive. This is one of the reasons I am glad I know where the meat I eat comes from and the actual conditions it lives in. Also I know how the processor operates and it is substantially cleaner and more careful than the big ones. It doesn't hurt that they h

          • Where do you buy? Do they ship?

            • Where do you buy?

              Doesn't matter.

              Do they ship?

              Not enough to supply you without dropping quality. At least, not in the next few years.

            • Where do you buy?

              From a family friend who raises cattle and has been using the processor for years. I take my deer to that processor as well as unlike so many other ones you actually get your deer back. Also while I could butcher a deer one would find out the true meaning of hatched job if I did and it seems like such a waste when for a nominal cost one can get the best cuts done right. The processor is Grand Champion Meats [grandchampionmeats.com] in Foley, MN. Also with this setup I pay the farmer for the beef directly and pay the processor for t

      • Re:Vegetarians at risk. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Attila Dimedici ( 1036002 ) on Thursday April 21, 2016 @07:18AM (#51954783)
        No, you wouldn't. The thing you are overlooking is that these drugs get into the water supply because humans pee them out. With vanishingly rare exceptions, chemicals which are in human urine do not bio-accumulate. The simple explanation of this is that chemicals which bio-accumulate do not cross the membrane filters used by the kidneys to filter blood and thus stay in the blood.
        So, since these drugs do NOT build up in the human body to any significant extent, they will, also, not build up in the bodies of animals.Basically, plants will likely contain ALL of the drugs which they took up from the water for their entire life cycle (from germination to harvest) while animals will only have the drugs which were contained in their last meal or three.
    • Because your pee ingestion is a more deliberate act?

    • Re: Vegetarians at risk. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But what if you ate a vegetarian?

      Clearly the solution is to move to the top of the food chain and prey entirely on those who feed on sentient beings.

      It's the only way to be sure.

    • those who eat a lot of produce, such as vegetarians.

      Good thing I'm not a vegetarian then.

      Except that meat-eaters tend to eat animals that are, so they get it pre-concentrated, as it were.

  • I think it's also important to note that this means you are inadvertently eating someone else's pee.

  • Drugs everywhere but in my stash box *sigh*

  • Can we get to peak pharma yet?
    I'm willing to let a bunch of people suffer and die for it, including myself whenever whatever befalls me.

  • Only 10,000 times lower? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jandrese ( 485 ) <kensama@vt.edu> on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @08:20PM (#51952775) Homepage Journal
    I'm surprised the concentrations are high enough to only be 4 orders of magnitude off from a person actively taking the medication. I would have expected it to dilute a lot more than that over the course of irrigating a field of crops, picked, processed, cooked, and finally ingested.
    • The water probably evaporates while the formerly diluted substances stay present. Also, people consume lots of food, so if one kilogram of food contains a chemical amount ten thousand times smaller than a single one gram pill, it's actually a ten million times lower concentration. You just eat a lot of it.

    • Re:Only 10,000 times lower? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @09:51PM (#51953217)

      10,000 times lower? That's only a 2C homeopathic succussion. No wonder it doesn't really do anything to people.

    • I'm surprised the concentrations are high enough to only be 4 orders of magnitude off from a person actively taking the medication. I would have expected it to dilute a lot more than that over the course of irrigating a field of crops, picked, processed, cooked, and finally ingested.

      In fact if this study is accurate, then homeopathy must work.

    • I'm surprised the concentrations are high enough to only be 4 orders of magnitude off from a person actively taking the medication. I would have expected it to dilute a lot more than that over the course of irrigating a field of crops, picked, processed, cooked, and finally ingested.

      The numbers are verging on homeopathy.

    • Something seems off about this whole story. Blackwater [wikipedia.org] is stuff that comes from your toilet. It is treated until it's solid waste [wikipedia.org]. Greywater [wikipedia.org] is stuff from other sources (sinks, bathtubs, showers, storm drains). It's treated, but not to the extent of blackwater.

      Due to the risk of human pathogens in blackwater, only treated graywater is allowed to be used for irrigation. TFA says their study was conducted in Israel. Maybe they use treated blackwater for irrigation there since it's basically a desert?

      • As the AC mentions, in houses, there is a single sewage outflow pipe. The only place I have ever seen a seperate grey and black water setup is in RVs/camper trailers, but even then it is only to make it easier to plumb the sinks, the grey water is emptied through the same output as the blackwater, just last as it is used to flush the other tanks and the emptying pipes.

  • Water Filters? (Score:3)

    by nowsharing ( 2732637 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @08:21PM (#51952785)
    Do home water filters like Brita help with this kind of problem?

    • Re:Water Filters? (Score:5, Funny)

      by nsuccorso ( 41169 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @08:27PM (#51952837)
      I suppose, if you can somehow shove your fruits and vegetables through them...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      No, 'cause it's not coming in from the faucet, it's in the produce.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Lolno.

      Ignoring the fact that the article isn't about tap water; the stuff that IS in tap water isn't caught by customer-grade products like Brita water filters.

      The Las Vegas area, due to the extreme amount of water recycling done, has had this problem for years (decades?) now. People simply flush drugs (prescription, over the counter, illicit) down the drain, the water gets recycled, the drugs aren't filtered out and it all goes back into the system to be reused as clean water.

  • 10,000 time reduction each time (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    No they don't get trapped in a loop.

    If I eat one of these prescription-laced carrots or whatever, I've got 1/10,000 (4 order of magnitude) less than the person who made that pee carrot. I will then contribute 1/10,000 of that, and someone will eat my pee and contribute 1/10,000 of THAT. By the third person, there is 1/1,000,000,000,000 and we're talking about homeopathic levels.

    That's hardly 'trapped in a loop.'

    • That's hardly 'trapped in a loop.

      Maybe not but it sounds kinky.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The assumption is that the next carrot will also be a pee carrot, because nothing has changed in terms of the original person taking the drugs. Therefore, 1/10,000 + 1/1,000,000 + 1/1,000,000,000,000 and so on. That's a loop.

  • Critical Words (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The critical words are "single blind test" and Speculate

    Basically - researchers went looking for something and strangely found it

    I wonder what will happen when they look for poisons (arsenic, cyanide etc) or dead insects.

    Just a bull shit story went to get media coverage
    even then the summary doesn't make sense. one person on a drug. One person has a drug at concentrate x in their urine.
    This is mixed with all the other peoples waste water from showers, washing etc - then added to a crop, harvested, eaten and

    • It might explain this

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... [nih.gov]
      Abstract

      CONTEXT:
      Age-specific estimates of mean testosterone (T) concentrations appear to vary by year of observation and by birth cohort, and estimates of longitudinal declines in T typically outstrip cross-sectional decreases. These observations motivate a hypothesis of a population-level decrease in T over calendar time, independent of chronological aging.

      RESULTS:
      We observe a substantial age-independent decline in T that does not appear to be attributa

  • That compound seems to have low biological affinity: if it could be absorbed and expelled intact by both humans and crops, how could it have any biological effect?

    • Re:Biological affinity (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Obfuscant ( 592200 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @09:14PM (#51953061)
      Biological effect does not require a chemical to break down in the process. Most drugs are eliminated after being broken down, but their effect comes from interacting with the systems while they are whole. Or sometimes, the metabolic products are what interact with the system.

      But if you want a perfect example of something that doesn't break down but has a serious effect: lead. Your body doesn't convert lead to anything but lead. Wouldn't it be great if our bodies had nuclear reactors that could split lead into something else?

      But anyway, what's the problem with this carb-whatever? Isn't it good that everyone will be less likely to have seizures?

      • But if you want a perfect example of something that doesn't break down but has a serious effect: lead.

        Yes, I have heavy metals in mind when writing my comment. The problem with lead is that it is not expelled from the body.

        • The problem with lead is that it is not expelled from the body.

          But the fact that it is not expelled is not why it is a poison.

          I answered your original question: " if it could be absorbed and expelled intact by both humans and crops, how could it have any biological effect?" Lots of drugs are expelled intact and have biological effect because being metabolized is not how they impact the system. Many are metabolized by the liver while the original drug moderates a system in the brain or other organs. Many are simply filtered out by the kidneys intact.

          If you want anoth

    • It may be that you have to supersaturate a person's whole body to get an active dose into whatever organ system the drug operates in. Pharmacokinetics can get pretty complicated.

  • RO will clear up your water (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If you are concerned with say lead or pharmaceuticals, Reverse Osmosis will get it out. The process uses 5 parts untreated water to give you 1 part purified so it is wasteful. It runs off the pressure supplied by your water line so there's that. I got a setup for about 100 bucks online. It works ok. More expensive units probably do better. My total dissolved solids meter shows tap water at 350ppm here and the RO water at about 20 ppm. get one with a tank if you go cheap, it delivers a tiny trickle of

  • Now we can shut down those evil Pharma companies since everything is pre-medicated!!!

  • Roundup (Score:2)

    by SETY ( 46845 )

    All the effort spent on glyphosate..... Versus actual drugs that work in humans. I wonder if this is the tip of the iceberg?

  • Going vegan (Score:5, Funny)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @09:08PM (#51953035) Journal

    Can someone tell me which veggies will contain the most oxycontin? Asking for a friend.

    Please God, don't let it be brussels sprouts. They give me wicked gas.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Oxytocin is a 9 residue peptide. It is destroyed by GI proteins, precluding any possibility of systemic absorption when administered via the oral route.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It's a conspiracy. They don't make any of the good drugs easy to recycle in order to keep prices high.

  • Sand Filtering (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Some lake water sources in Europe with sand based soil around them have been detected forming a bacterial films or a net at the bottom which conveniently filters most medical waste products away from the water supply. Perhaps bioengineered bacterial filters could be used to manage the pollution.

  • The good news: We just made all your prescription drugs affordable.
    The bad news...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      ...you need to eat your veggies.

  • So, once consumed, metabolized, excreted, grown in plants, and re-consumed, the drug molecules don't break down?
  • Probably not, but it's sterile, and I like the taste. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • This is homeopathy in action, guys.

  • Abstract: the water may have just been treated for bacteria, and that hasn't cut it for urban effluent for at least a decade.

    I've read the paper, and I was disappointed to find that the researchers didn't provide any context regarding the type(s) of treatment used on the wastewater before it was dumped into the irrigation systems.

    I followed up with one of the footnotes: Wastewater treatment and use in agriculture - FAO irrigation and drainage paper 47 [fao.org], where I find in section 2.3 that for water to be recycl

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