It all adds up: Study finds forever chemicals are more toxic as mixtures

Research also finds that PFOA and PFOS are major contributors to toxicity

Source: University at Buffalo

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Summary:

A new study has measured the toxicity of several types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), better known as 'forever chemicals,' when mixed together in the environment and in the human body.

A first-of-its-kind study has measured the toxicity of several types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), better known as "forever chemicals," when mixed together in the environment and in the human body.

The good news: Most of the tested chemicals' individual cytotoxicity and neurotoxicity levels were relatively low.

The bad news: the chemicals acted together to make the entire mixture toxic.

"Though they are structurally similar, not all forever chemicals are made equal -- some are more potent, others less. When mixed, all components contributed to the mixture's cytotoxicity and neurotoxicity," says the study's first-author, Karla Ríos-Bonilla, a chemistry PhD student at the University at Buffalo.

"In the laboratory assays we used in this study, most of the types of PFAS that we tested did not appear to be very toxic when measured individually. However, when you measure an entire sample with multiple PFAS, you see the toxicity," adds study co-author Diana Aga, PhD, director of the RENEW Institute, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Henry M. Woodburn Chair in the UB Department of Chemistry.

This research was conducted in collaboration with Beate Escher of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig, Germany, where Ríos-Bonilla did the  in vitro  toxicity experiments in the high-throughput screening facility CITEPro. It was published Sept. 11 in Environmental Science and Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society.

The study is novel in that it assesses mixture toxicity of PFAS. These synthetic compounds have been widely used in consumer products -- from nonstick pans to makeup -- for decades, and they can take hundreds to thousands of years to break down, if ever. They are estimated to be in at least 45% of the nation's drinking water and in the blood of practically every American, and they have been linked to cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders.

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Taxonomy

• PFAS