‘Forever chemicals’ slowly but surely harming our liver

Every once in a while your body needs detox from the environmental pollutants and toxins, and of course our sedentary lifestyle. Some bad habits like consumptions of liquor, hard drugs, and junk food can be damaging to your liver. Perfluooctane sulfate (PFOS), a chemical substance, has been linked to the most common type of liver cancer, a recent study indicates.

PFOS are present in a wide range of consumer and industrial products, and are referred to as “forever chemicals” because they disintegrate very slowly and accumulate both in the environment and in human tissue.

Scientists from the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine scanned human blood and tissue samples to collect relevant data as part of a large-scale study. They then compared samples from 50 liver cancer patients with 50 others who didn’t develop cancer.

Health professionals detected several types of polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — the family of chemicals to which PFOS belongs — in the blood samples of patients taken prior to their liver cancer diagnosis.

In short, the strongest link was between PFOS and liver cancer. Patients with PFOS levels in the top 10% were 4.5 times more likely to develop liver cancer than those with the lowest levels, researchers found.

The researches also found evidence that PFOS disrupts normal metabolic activities in the liver, causing more fat to accumulate in the organ. Fatty liver disease is known to increase the risk of liver cancer, and is expected to affect 30% of U.S. adults by 2030.

Source : Winston-Salem Journal

‘Forever chemicals’ slowly but surely harming our liver