Early-life exposure to\u00a0per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances\u00a0(PFAS) may influence how children’s bones develop during adolescence, according to new research\u00a0published in the\u00a0Journal of the Endocrine Society.<\/p>\n
PFAS\u00a0are\u00a0synthetic\u00a0chemicals\u00a0found in water,\u00a0food\u00a0and everyday products.\u00a0These “forever chemicals,”\u00a0many of\u00a0which persist in the environment and in the human body, may interfere with normal development, including bone growth.<\/p>\n
“Adolescence is a key period for building strong bones, and achieving optimal bone mass during this time can reduce lifelong risks\u00a0of fractures and osteoporosis,”\u00a0said\u00a0Jessie P. Buckley, Ph.D., M.P.H.,\u00a0of the\u00a0UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health\u00a0in Chapel Hill, N.C. “Our findings\u00a0suggest\u00a0reducing PFAS exposure during key developmental windows could support healthier bones throughout life.”<\/p>\n
The authors studied\u00a0the\u00a0blood\u00a0PFAS\u00a0concentrations\u00a0of\u00a0218\u00a0teens\u00a0from\u00a0a prospective pregnancy and birth cohort at delivery and ages 3, 8 and 12 years\u00a0old.\u00a0They\u00a0measured bone density at age 12 and\u00a0found that\u00a0teens\u00a0with higher\u00a0blood\u00a0perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)\u00a0levels\u00a0had lower forearm bone density.<\/p>\n
For other PFAS, the links to bone density varied depending on when exposures occurred, suggesting that certain developmental stages may be especially vulnerable.\u00a0The associations of PFAS\u00a0levels\u00a0with lower\u00a0bone density\u00a0were stronger among females than males.<\/p>\n
“These findings add to growing evidence that PFAS exposure during early life may carry long-term health consequences, underscoring the importance of efforts to reduce contamination in drinking water and consumer products,” Buckley said.<\/p>\n
Other study authors are\u00a0Katherine Marquess\u00a0of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Md.; Joseph Braun of Brown University in Providence,\u00a0R.I.; Antonia Calafat of the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga.; Kim Cecil, Halley Wasserman, Yingying Xu and Kimberly Yolton\u00a0of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Cincinnati\u00a0and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Ohio;\u00a0Aimin\u00a0Chen of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Penn.; Bruce Lanphear of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada;\u00a0and Jordan Kuiper of The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
The study received funding from\u00a0the National Institute of Environmental Health\u00a0Sciences.\u00a0“Per- and Poly-fluoroalkyl Substances and Adolescent Bone Mineral Density: Assessing Periods of Susceptibility,”\u00a0was published online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early-life exposure to\u00a0per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances\u00a0(PFAS) may influence how children’s bones develop during adolescence, according to new research\u00a0published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2991,10554,8843,4103,56129,426,103,9385,61,60,15347,9519,2361,89],"class_list":["post-350841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-blood","tag-bone","tag-chemicals","tag-children","tag-endocrine","tag-food","tag-health","tag-hormone","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-osteoporosis","tag-ph","tag-public-health","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}