{"id":247201,"date":"2025-10-28T21:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T21:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/247201\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T21:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T21:48:14","slug":"study-finds-adverse-links-between-pfas-exposure-and-reproductive-health-in-mice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/247201\/","title":{"rendered":"Study finds adverse links between PFAS exposure and reproductive health in mice"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pre-clinical animal study has found adverse links between high exposure to PFAS and male reproductive health.<\/p>\n

For 12 weeks University of Newcastle researchers exposed mice to “environmentally relevant” levels of PFAS in their drinking water.<\/p>\n

The levels of PFAS mirrored a sample of groundwater taken in 2019 from a contaminated site<\/a> at Williamtown, near Newcastle.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jacinta Martin was one of the study’s lead researchers. (ABC Newcastle: Ben Clifford)<\/p>\n

Researchers found the mice’s daily sperm production decreased, as did their testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) levels.<\/p>\n

Testosterone and DHT are vital hormones for sperm production and fetal development.<\/p>\n

“When we looked closely at the sperm, they kind of looked normal, they swam well, they were capable of fertilising an egg,” one of the study’s lead researchers Jacinta Martin said.<\/p>\n

“But when we really dug into how they were functioning, we saw that the little messages they delivered to an egg at fertilisation \u2026 differed to the animals that hadn’t been exposed.”<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

The study found high exposure to PFAS can change the molecular makeup of sperm. (Supplied: University of Newcastle)<\/p>\n

Researchers also found changes in gene expression when they examined embryos fertilised by the PFAS-exposed males.<\/p>\n

They said that shift could affect pregnancy and birth outcomes.<\/p>\n

“The biggest change we saw was that the size of the body could be increased,” Dr Martin said.<\/p>\n

“Body weight at birth happens in a very perfect curve, so any changes from the norm could be a problem.”PFAS experts answer your curly questions about ‘forever chemicals’<\/a><\/p>\n

As Australians figure out how to live with so-called “forever chemicals”, we’ve asked leading PFAS experts to help us understand the risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Researchers said it was too early to link the findings to human health impacts.<\/p>\n

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) encompass a group of more than 14,000 synthetic chemicals, used in all kinds of industrial and domestic products, from firefighting foam to non-stick cookware.<\/p>\n

Often referred to as “forever chemicals”, PFAS are known for their resistance to decay, taking hundreds to thousands of years to naturally break down<\/p>\n

University of Melbourne Professor Ian Rae said it could be difficult to identify the effects of PFAS in isolation.<\/p>\n

“Careful analysis of data and elimination of influences other than PFAS can be hard to rule out because the PFAS chemicals are only \u2013 when compared to many other toxins \u2013 rather mild and their effects can be hard to pin down,” he said.<\/p>\n

Professor Rae described the research as “good, solid experimental work” that added to the growing understanding of PFAS toxicity and highlighted areas for further study.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Lindsay Clout has been a leading community voice on PFAS for a decade. (ABC Newcastle: Ben Clifford)<\/p>\n

PFAS levels ‘through the roof’<\/p>\n

Lindsay Clout and his wife Ann live at Fullerton Cove, near the Williamtown RAAF base.<\/p>\n

Mr Clout, the former head of the Coalition Against PFAS, has lobbied governments for almost a decade about the risks posed by the chemicals.<\/p>\n

Despite a 2020 settlement that saw Williamtown residents compensated for a loss of land value from PFAS<\/a>, Mr Clout said the fight was ongoing.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got PFAS blood-levels on people in the area that are just through the roof,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Background levels might be 17 to 20 nanograms per millilitre in the blood \u2026 we’ve got people in the hundreds.”<\/p>\n

Between 2018 and 2022 the Department of Defence undertook remedial work on soil, groundwater and surface water in the Williamtown area.<\/p>\n

Defence records show PFAS levels in groundwater have been decreasing at the three sites where water treatment plants were installed.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The “forever chemicals”were historically used in fire fighting foam at the Willamtown RAAF base. (Four Corners)<\/p>\n

Despite the decrease, Mr Clout is concerned there may be long-term and generational impacts.<\/p>\n

“It could be all very well to clean up the PFAS contamination \u2026 but it’s not over because we’ve got offspring that could have been affected in prenatal stages.”<\/p>\n

Following the study, researchers plan to examine the trans-generational effects of PFAS exposure.<\/p>\n

The team will expose another group of mice to the same PFAS sample, breed them and study how the chemicals could affect future generations.<\/p>\n

The findings of that study are expected to be delivered within the next 12 months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pre-clinical animal study has found adverse links between high exposure to PFAS and male reproductive health. For…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[20233,64,63,29808,16836,18117,137,32561,22874,129126,10668,18120,8709,337,2286,146791],"class_list":["post-247201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-animal","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chemicals","tag-fertility","tag-forever-chemicals","tag-health","tag-infertility","tag-male","tag-mice","tag-newcastle","tag-pfas","tag-reproductive-health","tag-research","tag-study","tag-williamtown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}