[NotGMan]

Interesting, best of luck with this, microplastics really are the modern lead.

You said it removes them from the blood: does the body dump microplastics in the gut for your product to remove them from the blood or how does it work (if you can answer due to proprietary reasons)?

Are saunas and blood donations not also effective for this?

[klevertree1]

PFAS (and, to a lesser extent, plasticizers) circulate from the blood to the gut ~5 times per day through enterohepatic circulation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterohepatic_circulation). This is why cholestyramine was shown to be effective at reducing serum PFAS by up to 60% in a Swedish trial.

Blood donations are also somewhat effective, saunas less so. Also, to be clear, PFAS are very different from microplastics. PFAS are the Teflon chemical.

[amluto]

> the Teflon chemical

Teflon is PTFE, which is fully fluorinated but is also very much a plastic: it’s a highly unreactive solid at reasonable temperatures (which sadly do not include temperatures commonly encountered on stoves).

By “the Teflon chemical” are you perhaps referring to the various nasty liquid, water-soluble surfactants commonly used in factories that make or process PTFE? Those include PFOA, PFOS, and the newer and not obviously any safer “GenX” compounds.

[BenjiWiebe]

Yes, they are referring to PFOA/PFOS; they're talking about PFAS which is the broad class of chemical compounds that includes PFOA/PFAS. And PFAS are not plastics.

[jcims]

>Blood donations are also somewhat effective, saunas less so. Also, to be clear, PFAS are very different from microplastics. PFAS are the Teflon chemical.

I wonder if there's a safe way to equip people to just do simple bloodletting if they have high exposure to PFAS. I mean obviously it's better to donate, even in that case, given the steady state of most blood banks. But it's still a bit of a pain in the ass.

[ben-schaaf]

It's a common misconception, but microplastics and forever-chemicals (PFAS) are not the same thing. They're two similar, but distinct pollutants.

> Are saunas and blood donations not also effective for this?

Yes, plasma & blood donations are good at reducing PFAS blood concentration. Some(?) firefighting foam contains PFAS, so they tend to have high blood concentrations. Donations have shown to significantly reduce that: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8994130/

[klevertree1]

All the older firefighting foam did. Some of the new stuff does. There's also some amount of "poisoning" from the old equipment to the new foam.

Unfortunately, PFAS sticks around forever, so everywhere that the old firefighting foam was deployed (e.g. air force bases) still has high levels of PFAS contamination.

[ben-schaaf]

There was a scare in 2024 where high levels of PFAS were found in the water supply in the Blue Mountains region of NSW. It took months, but they traced it to a single fire in 1992 where foam was deployed. Scary stuff.

[contingencies]

So avoid using dry teflon lubricant spray? Will do!

[ByThyGrace]

Blood donation helps the donor, but what happens to the recipient? Would it not be possible to accumulate PFAS in your blood stream by receiving PFAS-concentrate blood? Is it that simple?

[NotGMan]

Yes, but since blood donations are not tested for this you don't know what you get so people are already getting PFAS contaminated blood.

You could just do phlebotomy (blood letting) where your blood is discarded in case you have insanely high PFAS.

[bawolff]

> They're two similar, but distinct pollutants.

They aren't particularly similar.

Honestly, the way the two are conflated is quite annoying. You should be terrified of PFAS. You should be mildly worried about microplastics, mostly because there isn't enough research on the effects yet.

[everdrive]

In PFAS's defense, we really needed to poison the whole planet. Otherwise people would have occasionally needed to get wet in the rain, or perhaps scrub their pots and pans. Really, these extremely minor conveniences are worth the devastating cost to ours and future generations.

[genewitch]

To people that see this: yes, cast iron is as non-stick as teflon, but you are generally told not to soak or put it in the dishwasher. I don't think you're supposed to put teflon in the dishwasher, but people do.

Regardless, the main thing about cast iron is to use it all the time. If you really, truly use cast iron all the time, it will never have food stick to it, you'll never need to "scrub" it. Hot water in the pan, let it sit for 10 seconds, scour with a normal dishes brush or whatever you use, put the pan on the stove, heat till there's no water, hit quickly with an oil spray. Notice i didn't mention soap. It takes EXACTLY the same amount of time as cleaning an older teflon pan, less the heating part. I just look at the heating as sterilization, and i don't worry about it.

I have 3 induction hobs, i switched to 100% cast iron and stainless cookware, and i'm happy. I just got tired of being upset about flakes/damage to my cookware from other people using it. MIL gave me a set of lodge she didn't want, plus i had 3 pans from ages ago that we re-seasoned and started using. Cast iron griddle, cast iron flat weight.

If my arthritis gets so bad i can't lift the pans at all, i might consider carbon steel or something, but i haven't used it yet. I'm better at cooking on cast iron than stainless, but i can make stainless work, too; it's just more hands-on than cast iron or teflon.

I've used peanut, rapeseed, olive, coconut, avocado oils; butter, bacon and other rendered fat. All work fine, although butter i'd put some other oil in with it. I only use avocado, peanut, olive, and bacon, in that order these days because of diet and other concerns.

[WarmWash]

To go down the rabbit hole of cast iron...which seemingly is not that deep.

We use cast iron daily, but I have been unable to find any health studies that looked at the quasi plastic polymerized fats that make up the cast iron cooking surface. Not even studies to determine what they are exactly. I wouldn't be slightly surprised if it's found that eating the bits of scraped up "seasoning" while cooking leads to cancer or something.

So I think that leaves stainless steel as the ultimate health conscious cooking pan.

[genewitch]

aersolizing fats is a breathing hazard, so no matter what, you're putting carcinogens in your body. Campfire? Bad for your health. Meat anyhow bad for your health.

I draw the line at teflon flakes, you draw the line at what apparently is just another type of "quasi plastic"

[gryzzly]

so many things contain it, like plumbing tape that a plumber might use right in your water supply - to fix a leak leading to your tap :/ and then the ski waxes until recently. it is really strange lots of these products are still sold all over

[tristor]

PTFE plumbers tape is not the cause of people getting PFAS in their bloodstream. The PRIMARY source of PFAS for most people is via the water supply [1][2] and the food supply, directly. The food supply is contaminated because the water supply is contaminated and these compounds bio-accumulate in vegetation that is irrigated with contaminated water and in animals that consume that vegetation or drink that contaminated water. As someone very concerned about this issue and that takes precautions that put me very much in the long-tail of the population, I also still use PTFE plumbers tape when doing home repairs. PTFE/Teflon is not a risk factor as long as it is not exposed to high temperatures (>350F) (and yes that means you should throw out your nonstick cookware and learn how to use cast iron and stainless steel for cooking).

In order to reduce contamination in my home's drinking water, I have a whole-home water filtration that's lab certified to NSF 53 standards (and beyond) to remove PFAS, and then for drinking and cooking usages, I further filter water via a 5-stage RO system that's certified to NSF 58 standards (and beyond). Not just drinking/cooking incurs contamination, water is aerosolized and breathed in while showering as an example. I only cook using bare metal; cast iron, carbon steel, stainless steel, glass and ceramic bakeware. Even with these precautions, I still get PFAS exposure just via the foods I eat, and being exposed in the overall environment (e.g. through rainfall).

[1]: https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/millions-us-... [2]: https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/

[gryzzly]

thanks for the comment and links.

[quickthrowman]

PTFE tape is perfectly safe to use on threaded fittings for domestic water lines, both hot and cold.

[rustyhancock]

Saunas helping with any kind of detox is complete hocum.

Blood donations clearly do.

Microplastics and PFAS aren't synonyms however.

What isn't established is a dose dependant harm from PFAS. Some things are harmful in minute quantities to the point it doesn't matter if you have a lot or a little.

Lead has a clear dose response but a relatively low threshold for noticeable harm. It's not clear what PFAS curve will look like.

I won't restart the linear no threshold flame wars about radiation harm but let's just say it's not always intuitive.

[zonkerdonker]

There is plenty of evidence that sauna does in fact help with detox, specifically phthalates. It's not magic or some intrinsic property of sauna though, just sweat. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3504417/