Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Science

Exposure To Some Common Pfas Changes Gene Activity, New Study Finds (theguardian.com) 29

Posted by msmash from the more-you-know dept.
New research suggests exposure to some common Pfas or "forever chemical" compounds causes changes to gene activity, and those changes are linked to health problems including multiple cancers, neurological disorders and autoimmune disease. From a report: The findings are a major step toward determining the mechanism by which the chemicals cause disease and could help doctors identify, detect and treat health problems for those exposed to Pfas before the issues advance. The research may also point toward other diseases potentially caused by Pfas that have not yet been identified, the authors said.

The study is among the first to examine how Pfas chemicals impact gene activity, called epigenetics. "This gives us a hint as to which genes and which Pfas might be important," said Melissa Furlong, a University of Arizona College of Public Health Pfas researcher and study lead author.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Exposure To Some Common Pfas Changes Gene Activity, New Study Finds More

Exposure To Some Common Pfas Changes Gene Activity, New Study Finds

Comments Filter:

  • Too High a Price for Benefits (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Friday August 15, 2025 @03:27PM (#65592540) Homepage
    Forever lingering is bad attribute for a cancer-causing substance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
  • I don't think there's enough democracy left in the world to do anything about this. There's certainly aren't enough people who aren't busy panicking over every little moral thing out there.

    We have solid polling that indicates Trump won the election due to panic over trans kids in sports and healthcare for trans kids. Specifically the discredited nonsense called rapid onset gender dysphoria and the belief that your kid might just turn trans someday because of something they saw on TV...

    That's just on

    • How are we to take RFK's opinions on plastics against the White House's National Strategy To End the Use of Paper Straws [whitehouse.gov]. What would the politicization of everything be without having to make drinking straws a matter of political ideology.

      The fact that sentence and document exists should be looked at when we found lead in the Roman's drinking water. "Damn, they sure fucked themselves up"

  • If the first thing a site does when you open it is talk about having to fight Elon Musk (?!), it isn't worth going any further. The Guardian is a garbage propaganda outlet and everything they publish must be suspect as a result.

    Oh, they are also funded by billionaires, despite their claims. Bill Gates has given them millions, and he isn't the only one. They need it, they're hemorrhaging money.

    • What do you consider reputable sources of journalism?

      • The Guardian is a reputable source of journalism. The OP is just whining. You'll note they didn't criticize the content, only the source. That is standard tactic nowadays.

        That said, they probably consider NewsMax or Breitbart as the epitome of "reputable" sources.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          Which "The Guardian"? Certainly the one I kept getting in my mailbox was NOT reputable journalism. Perhaps "The Manchester Guardian" is reputable. But I've never seen a copy. And if the US edition of "The Guardian" (without adjectival mods) is the same company as the British edition, then neither one is trustworthy, as they just say what they think will sell. And they occasionally directly contradict each other.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward
            "Britons are most likely to trust journalists working for the likes of The Times and The Guardian to tell the truth - overall a third (34%) of Britons say they trust these newspapers, but this is still down four percentage points from 38% in mid-October." - https://yougov.co.uk/politics/... [yougov.co.uk]
            • Well, if the partisan breakdown in the UK is similar to that in the US, it means the left 1/3rd trusts The Guardian, while the center and right do not.

        • Oh you are probably right, that's why I ask, everybody gets their info from somewhere.

        • They are, by their own words, not a source of journalism. They explicitly denounced journalistic objectivity, and thus defined themselves as something else. That something else would be opinion, but in the same announcement stated that their opinions are in fact, facts.

          You know that yellow box that pops up begging for money? You know how right now it says they are engaged in a partisan fight? Well, it used to say that they don't believe in objectivity, but do believe that their opinions are fact. Th

      • Two criteria would be that they at least attempt to maintain objectivity in reporting and distinguish between reporting and editorial opinion. A source that announces that they are not interested in journalistic objectivity, that their opinions are facts, and that they are engaged in a partisan fight, would not be on my list.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Claiming that it's important to tight Elon Musk is not a sign that the results are untrustworthy, but it may well be taking as being extremely partisan. OTOH, anyone who trusts Musk is as intelligent as someone who trusts Zuckerberg.

      • If the first thing a news outlet does when you look at their articles is tell you that they are engaged in a partisan fight, and have previously announced that they do not believe in objectivity and hold their opinions on important political matters to be facts, what can you take away? Journalists are supposed to at least try to be objective. Opinion outlets make it clear that they are promoting opinions. Who is it that tells you that objectivity is bad and that their opinions are hard facts?

        That's why

  • I am not sure what this proves (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Retired Chemist ( 5039029 ) on Friday August 15, 2025 @05:11PM (#65592772)
    I am not suggesting that Poly fluoroalkanes are not a problem in the environment, but I am not sure what this study proves. Lots of chemicals including ones in nature effect gene activity. Aside from everything else, it is an important part of how biochemistry functions in living organisms. I think if you took any class of compounds, you would find some affected gene activity. Separating out the effects of one class of chemicals from all the others (and their interactions) is going to be very difficult. Also, you might as well face the reality, cancer is what you will die from if something else does not kill you first. Everyone dies eventually.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      It's been well known for quite a while that some fluoroalkanes cause disease. Not in the "oh, you might get cancer in forty years" way but in the "lots of cows are dying mysteriously" way. Studying the effects of those chemicals on biological systems, including genetic expression, can tell us a lot about what they're doing and potentially ways to treat those diseases.

    • They're trying to find the exact method by which these PFAS negatively affect the body. If we can detoxify people of these toxins, they might live longer and be healthier during that time. They appear to harm DNA, impede the repair process, and alter how DNA is read/transcribed.

      In recent years, a growing body of research has shown that PFAS can exert their toxicity through disruption of both DNA integrity and epigenetic regulation. This includes changes in DNA methylation patterns, histone modifications, chromatin remodeling, and interference with DNA repair mechanisms. These molecular-level alterations can impair transcriptional regulation and cellular homeostasis, contributing to genomic instability and long-term biological dysfunction. In neural systems, PFAS exposure appears particularly concerning. It affects key regulators of neurodevelopment, such as BDNF, synaptic plasticity genes, and inflammatory mediators. Importantly, epigenetic dysregulation extends to non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), including microRNAs (miRNAs) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), which mediate post-transcriptional silencing and chromatin remodeling. Although direct evidence of transgenerational neurotoxicity is still emerging, animal studies provide compelling hints. Persistent changes in germline epigenetic profiles and transcriptomic alterations suggest that developmental reprogramming might be heritable by future generations. https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6304... [mdpi.com]

      Here appears to be one mechanism, inhibition of a detoxifying enzyme. Which would negatively affect the body's ability to remove other toxins

      "Sulfotransferase (SULT) enzymes catalyze the sulfate conjugation of drugs, other xenobiot

      • The basic problem with PFAs versus other toxins is that they are extremely unreactive. That makes them difficult to remove from the environment or the body. Knowing the mechanism of action is not going to help with that. Our biochemistry has a large selection of methods for dealing with foreign chemicals, which unfortunately to not work for PFAs. It is quite possible that the issue is collateral damage when trying to remove them.

  • Mildly contaminated (Score:3)

    by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Friday August 15, 2025 @07:38PM (#65593014)
    Firefighters in this study are mildly contaminated (lucky them!). 95th percentile for PFOA in this study is 3.30 g/L. In France, the Esteban study reported 95th percentile for PFOA at 5.257 g/L. This is the general population, not firefighters.

  • Pfas? (Score:3)

    by dohzer ( 867770 ) on Saturday August 16, 2025 @02:11AM (#65593548)

    *PFAS

  • Are there Pfas in Sydney's jeans?

Slashdot Top Deals

"Sometimes insanity is the only alternative" -- button at a Science Fiction convention.

Close