It has been said for years that nature has a remedy for every problem out there. While we keep on expanding the horizons of medicine and technology, the field of nature has taken a step back, much to the disappointment of people who know that Mother Earth is the biggest magician and creator of all.A new study is now suggesting that the ‘forever chemicals’ that enter our body with water and food containing them, can be removed with a common dietary supplement.
Oats the solution to PFAS ?
Eating a fibre supplement derived from oats prior to every meal could help flush out the toxic forever chemicals from the body, as per the study.Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS commonly known as forever chemicals are used to make a variety of everyday use products such as non-stick cookware, cosmetics, stain-resistant fabrics, firefighting foams, food packaging and waterproof clothing.Previous studies have shown that beta-glucan fibre molecules found in oats, barley and rye can bind to PFAS in the digestive system. Now, the latest study published in Environmental Health has found that a dietary supplement that has beta-glucan fibre could significantly reduce PFAS levels in the body.
The focused study
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Researchers recruited 72 Canadian men aged 18 to 65 with detectable levels of PFAS in their blood and fed 42 of them a diet supplement of 1gm of oat beta-glucan, a type of soluble gel-fibre, before every mealtime, which is when the body produces most bile. The remaining 30 participants were fed a placebo made of rice.“Serum samples were collected from 72 participants in 2019-2020 at baseline and after four weeks of the intervention and were analysed for 17 PFASs,” stated the study.After 4 weeks, researchers found a nearly 10% drop in two of the most dangerous PFAS types in people who consumed the oat fibre supplement. These two PFAS, namely PFOA and PFOS are present in drinking water, food packaging and cosmetics and can build up in the body over time.These remain in the environment for hundreds of years and are linked to health conditions such as decreased fertility, higher risk of some cancers and developmental delays in children.Scientists and researchers have been looking for ways to remove these from the body and the environment to degrade them into harmless compounds.“Despite the growing concerns about the toxicity of PFAS, specific interventions to reduce PFAS levels in the body are limited,” the study notes. “Current clinical treatments to reduce PFAS body burden are minimal.”
More research is required
Although the results from this study are modest, scientists claim the findings offer a first step to forming a dietary intervention for removing PFAS from the body.“Results from this pilot analysis suggest a potentially practical and feasible intervention that may reduce human body burdens for some PFASs,” they said.“However, studies utilising a larger sample with a broader range of serum concentrations, longer intervention period and clinically relevant fibre intakes are needed to determine the efficacy of using gel-forming dietary fibres to increase PFAS excretion,” they added.
