PFAS Exposure & Cancer: The Numbers Are High

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PFAS & Cancer Risk: The Numbers Are High

Dr Maaike Van Gerwen studies the effects of exposure to PFAS on cancer development.
Image Credits Mount Sinai

This is Dr. Maaike van Gerwen. Is that an MD or a PhD, you wonder? It’s both.

She’s also Director of Research in the Department of Otolaryngology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, Scientific Director of the Program of Personalized Management of Thyroid Disease, and Member of the Institute for Translational Epidemiology and the Transdisciplinary Center on Early Environmental Exposures.

What does she want us to know?

She’d love for us to know about her latest research published literally today, about the risks associated with PFAS, such as the kind widely found in non-stick cookware:

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure and thyroid cancer risk

Dr. van Gerwen and her team tested this several ways, and the very short and simple version of the findings is that per doubling of exposure, there was a 56% increased rate of thyroid cancer diagnosis.

(The rate of exposure was not just guessed based on self-reports; it was measured directly from PFAS levels in the blood of participants)

  • PFAS exposure can come from many sources, not just non-stick cookware, but that’s a “biggie” since it transfers directly into food that we consume.
  • Same goes for widely-available microwaveable plastic food containers.
  • Relatively less dangerous exposures include waterproofed clothing.

To keep it simple and look at the non-stick pans and microwavable plastic containers, doubling exposure might mean using such things every day vs every second day.

Practical take-away: PFAS may be impossible to avoid completely, but even just cutting down on the use of such products is already reducing your cancer risk.

Isn’t it too late, by this point in life? Aren’t they “forever chemicals”?

They’re not truly “forever”, but they do have long half-lives, yes.

See: Can we take the “forever” out of forever chemicals?

The half-lives of PFOS and PFOA in water are 41 years and 92 years, respectively.

In the body, however, because our body is constantly trying to repair itself and eliminate toxins, it’s more like 3–7 years.

That might seem like a long time, and perhaps it is, but the time will pass anyway, so might as well get started now, rather than in 3–7 years time!

Read more: National Academies Report Calls for Testing People With High Exposure to “Forever Chemicals”

What should we use instead?

In place of non-stick cookware, cast iron is fantastic. It’s not everyone’s preference, though, so you might also like to know that ceramic cookware is a fine option that’s functionally non-stick but without needing a non-stick coating. Check for PFAS-free status; they should advertise this.

In place of plastic microwaveable containers, Pyrex (or equivalent) glass dishes (you can get them with lids) are a top-tier option. Ceramic containers (without metallic bits!) are also safely microwaveable.

See also:

Here’s a List of Products with PFAS (& How to Avoid Them)

Take care!

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  • Ginkgo Biloba, For Memory And, Uh, What Else Again?

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    Ginkgo biloba, for memory and, uh, what else again?

    Ginkgo biloba extract has enjoyed use for thousands of years for an assortment of uses, and has made its way from Traditional Chinese Medicine, to the world supplement market at large. See:

    Ginkgo biloba: A Treasure of Functional Phytochemicals with Multimedicinal Applications

    But what does the science say about the specific claims?

    Antioxidant & anti-inflammatory

    We’re going to lump these two qualities together for examination, since one invariably leads to the other.

    A quick note: things that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, often also help guard against cancer and aging. However, in this case, there are few good studies pertaining to anti-aging, and none that we could find pertaining to anti-cancer potential.

    So, does it have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, first?

    Yes, it has potent antioxidants that do fight inflammation; this is clear, from an abundance of in vitro and in vivo studies, including with human patients:

    In short: it helps, and there’s plenty of science for it.

    What about anti-aging effects?

    For this, there is science, but a lot of the science is not great. As one team of researchers concluded while doing a research review of their own:

    ❝Based on the reviewed information regarding EGb’s effects in vitro and in vivo, most have reported very positive outcomes with strong statistical analyses, indicating that EGb must have some sort of beneficial effect.

    However, information from the reported clinical trials involving EGb are hardly conclusive since many do not include information such as the participant’s age and physical condition, drug doses administered, duration of drug administered as well as suitable control groups for comparison.

    We therefore call on clinicians and clinician-scientists to establish a set of standard and reliable standard operating procedure for future clinical studies to properly evaluate EGb’s effects in the healthy and diseased person since it is highly possible it possesses beneficial effects.❞

    Translation from sciencese: “These results are great, but come on, please, we are begging you to use more robust methodology”

    ~ Zuo et al

    If you’d like to read the review in question, here it is:

    Advances in the Studies of Ginkgo Biloba Leaves Extract on Aging-Related Diseases

    Does it have cognitive enhancement effects?

    The claims here are generally that it helps:

    • improve memory
    • improve focus
    • reduce cognitive decline
    • reduce anxiety and depression

    Let’s break these down:

    Does it improve memory and cognition?

    Ginkgo biloba was quite popular for memory 20+ years ago, and perhaps had an uptick in popularity in the wake of the 1999 movie “Analyze This” in which the protagonist psychiatrist mentions taking ginkgo biloba, because “it helps my memory, and I forget what else”.

    Here are a couple of studies from not long after that:

    In short:

    • in the first study, it helped in standardized tests of memory and cognition (quite convincing)
    • In the second study, it helped in subjective self-reports of mental wellness (also placebo-controlled)

    On the other hand, here’s a more recent research review ten years later, that provides measures of memory, executive function and attention in 1132, 534 and 910 participants, respectively. That’s quite a few times more than the individual studies we cited above, by the way. They concluded:

    ❝We report that G. biloba had no ascertainable positive effects on a range of targeted cognitive functions in healthy individuals❞

    ~ Laws et al

    Read: Is Ginkgo biloba a cognitive enhancer in healthy individuals? A meta-analysis

    Our (10almonds) conclusion: we can’t say either way, on this one.

    Does it have neuroprotective effects (i.e., against cognitive decline)?

    Yes—probably by the same mechanism will discuss shortly.

    Can it help against depression and anxiety?

    Yes—but probably indirectly by the mechanism we’ll get to in a moment:

    Likely this helps by improving blood flow, as illustrated better per:

    Efficacy of ginkgo biloba extract as augmentation of venlafaxine in treating post-stroke depression

    Which means…

    Bonus: improved blood flow

    This mechanism may support the other beneficial effects.

    See: Ginkgo biloba extract improves coronary blood flow in healthy elderly adults

    Is it safe?

    Ginkgo biloba extract* is generally recognized as safe.

    • However, as it improves blood flow, please don’t take it if you have a bleeding disorder.
    • Additionally, it may interact badly with SSRIs, so you might want to avoid it if you’re taking such (despite it having been tested and found beneficial as an adjuvant to citalopram, an SSRI, in one of the studies above).
    • No list of possible contraindications can be exhaustive, so please consult your own doctor/pharmacist before taking something new.

    *Extract, specifically. The seeds and leaves of this plant are poisonous. Sometimes “all natural” is not better.

    Where can I get it?

    As ever, we don’t sell it (or anything else), but here’s an example product on Amazon

    Enjoy!

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  • Debunking the vitamin D fad

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    Throughout the pandemic, many unproven miracle COVID-19 “cures” emerged, and vitamin D claims have been one of the most persistent. This is not new for the vitamin. It’s been touted in recent decades as a way to “boost” the immune system, improve overall health, prevent a host of diseases, and allegedly even substitute for vaccines. 

    But as with many internet-popular health “remedies,” the reality is far less flashy and far more nuanced.

    What is vitamin D, and why is it important?

    Vitamin D is a nutrient that helps the body absorb calcium, which is essential for bone health. In the sunlight, your skin naturally produces vitamin D that is then stored in fat cells until it is used.

    The skin pigment melanin absorbs the UV rays necessary for vitamin D production, meaning that more highly pigmented or darker skin produces less vitamin D than lighter skin with the same amount of sun exposure. Thus, people with darker skin are at higher risk of vitamin D deficiency.

    Most of our vitamin D comes from the sun. An additional 10 percent to 20 percent of our vitamin D comes from foods like fatty fish (such as salmon), eggs, and mushrooms. Vitamin D supplements are another source of the nutrient for people who are unable to get enough from sun exposure and diet.

    Vitamin D deficiency is real, but there’s no epidemic

    Some people who promote vitamin D supplements claim that vitamin D deficiency is an epidemic causing widespread health issues. There is little evidence to support this claim. A 2022 analysis of 2001-2018 data found that 2.6 percent of people in the U.S. had severe vitamin D deficiency. 

    Severe vitamin D deficiency can cause serious health issues, such as muscle weakness, bone loss in adults, and rickets (weak bones) in children. Some people are at higher risk for the deficiency, including individuals with certain disorders that prevent the body from absorbing or processing vitamin D or those with a family history of vitamin D deficiency. 

    Black Americans have the highest rates of severe vitamin D deficiency at nearly 12 percent. Severe vitamin D deficiency is also slightly higher in the U.S. during the winter when people get less sun exposure. Rates of moderate vitamin D deficiency are higher at 22 percent overall and are highest among Black Americans (49 percent) and Mexican Americans (35 percent). 

    Although severe vitamin D deficiency exists in the U.S., it is far from common. Most tellingly, conditions that are directly linked to vitamin D deficiency are not widespread. There is no epidemic of rickets, for example, or bone loss in adults. 

    There’s little evidence that vitamin D supplements improve overall health

    Vitamin D supplements have clear, proven positive effects for people with vitamin D deficiency. Other health benefits of vitamin D supplements are less certain. 

    There is some evidence that the supplement may reduce the risk of fracture in adults with osteoporosis, a condition that causes weak, fragile bones. However, the benefit appears to be limited to people who have low vitamin D levels. In adults with normal vitamin D levels, supplements have no effect on fracture risk.

    The largest randomized controlled trial of vitamin D, called VITAL, investigated the effects of vitamin D supplementation in people without an existing deficiency. The study found that vitamin D supplements had no effects on the risk of cancer, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke. The study concluded that more research is necessary to determine who may benefit from vitamin D supplements. 

    Independent analyses found that vitamin D supplementation may be associated with a long-term decrease in cancer mortality, but results are mixed and also require more investigation.

    A 2021 analysis of past vitamin D trials found no overall health benefits from vitamin D supplements in people with normal vitamin D levels. Most large-scale studies have found no link between vitamin D supplements and lower all-cause mortality (deaths from any cause), except in older adults and those with vitamin D deficiency.

    Vitamin D provides modest protection against respiratory infections

    Vitamin D is important for immune function, but this is often misconstrued as vitamin D “boosting” the immune system. 

    Some people falsely believe that taking vitamin D supplements will keep them healthy and prevent infections like the flu or COVID-19. In reality, clinical trials and large-scale studies of vitamin D have found only minimal protective effects against respiratory infections. 

    A 2021 analysis of 46 trials found that 61.3 percent of participants who took daily vitamin D supplements got respiratory infections during the study periods—compared to 62.3 percent of people who did not take the supplements. A 2024 meta-analysis of 43 trials found no overall protective effect against respiratory infections, but it detected a slight decrease in risk among people who took specific doses daily. 

    In young children, there is some evidence that vitamin D supplementation may reduce the length of respiratory infections. However, it does not affect the number or severity of infections that children have.

    Despite claims that taking vitamin D can protect against COVID-19, two clinical trials found that taking daily vitamin D supplements did not reduce the risk or severity of COVID-19 infections, even at high doses. 

    Context is key when considering vitamin D’s benefits

    None of these studies contradict the well-established evidence that people with vitamin D deficiency benefit from vitamin D supplements. But it’s important to remember that many of the most popular health claims about vitamin D’s benefits are based on research in people with vitamin D deficiency.

    Research in vitamin D-deficient populations is important, but it tells us little about how vitamin D will affect people with normal or close to normal vitamin D levels. A closer look at vitamin D research in people without low levels reveals little evidence to support the idea that the general population benefits from taking vitamin D supplements. 

    For more information, or to learn about your vitamin D levels, talk to your health care provider.

    This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • Using the”Task Zero” approach

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Jonathan Frakes Asks You Things” Voice:

    • Do you ever find yourself in a room and wonder what you’re doing there?
    • Or set about a to-do list, but get quickly distracted by side-quests?
    • Finally get through to a person in a call center, they ask how they can help, and your mind goes blank?
    • Go to the supermarket and come out with six things, none of which were the one you came for?

    This is a “working memory” thing and you’re not alone. There’s a trick that can help keep you on track more often than not:

    Don’t try to overburden your working memory. It is very limited (this goes for everyone to a greater or lesser degree). Instead, hold only two tasks at once:

    • Task zero (what you are doing right now)
    • Task one (your next task)

    When you’ve completed task zero, task one becomes the new task zero, and you can populate a new task one from your to-do list.

    This way, you will always know what you’re doing right now, and what you’re doing next, and your focus will be so intent on task zero, that you will not get sidetracked by task seventeen!

    Happy focusing

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  • The CBT Workbook for Mental Health – by Dr. Simon Rego & Sarah Fader

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    We have often reviewed psychology books here with a note saying “and no, it’s not just a book of the standard CBT techniques that you probably already know”.

    So today, this one’s for anyone who was ever thinking “but I don’t know the standard CBT techniques and I would like to know them!”.

    The authors outline specific solutions to many common quantifiable problems, with simple exercises that are well-explained and easy to implement.

    Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is not a panacea, but for the things it can be used for, it’s very effective and is a very good “first thing to reach for” to see if it works, because its success rate for a lot of problems is very high.

    What kinds of things is this book most likely to help with? A lot of common forms of stress, anxiety, self-esteem issues, cravings, shame, and relationship issues. Other things too, but we can’t list everything and that list already covers a lot of very high-incidence stuff.

    Bottom line: if CBT isn’t something already in your toolbox, this book will help you add all its best tips and tricks.

    Click here to check out The CBT Workbook for Mental Health, and get tooled up!

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  • A Guide to Rational Living – by Drs. Albert Ellis and Robert Harper

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    We’ve talked before about the evidence-based benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and this book is indeed about CBT. In fact, it’s in many ways the book that popularized Third Wave CBT—in other words, CBT in its modern form.

    Dr. Ellis’s specific branch of CBT is Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, (REBT). What this means is using rationality to rewire emotions so that we’re not constantly sabotaging ourselves and our lives.

    This is very much a “for the masses” book and doesn’t assume any prior knowledge of psychology, therapy, or psychotherapy. Or, for that matter, philosophy, since Stoic philosopher Epictetus had a lot to say that influenced Dr. Ellis’s work, too!

    This book has also been described as “a self-help book for people who don’t like self-help books”… and certainly that Stoicism we mentioned does give the work a very different feel than a lot of books on the market.

    The authors kick off with an initial chapter “How far can you go with self-therapy?”, and the answer is: quite far, even if it’s not a panacea. Everything has its limitations, and this book is no exception. On the other hand…

    What the book does offer is a whole stack of tools, resources, and “How to…” chapters. In fact, there are so many “How to…” items in this book that, while it can be read cover-to-cover, it can also be used simply as a dip-in reference guide to refer to in times of need.

    Bottom line: this book is highly recommendable to anyone and everyone, and if you don’t have it on your bookshelf, you should.

    Click here to check out “A Guide To Rational Living” on Amazon today!

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  • Hate salad or veggies? Just keep eating them. Here’s how our tastebuds adapt to what we eat

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Do you hate salad? It’s OK if you do, there are plenty of foods in the world, and lots of different ways to prepare them.

    But given almost all of us don’t eat enough vegetables, even though most of us (81%) know eating more vegetables is a simple way to improve our health, you might want to try.

    If this idea makes you miserable, fear not, with time and a little effort you can make friends with salad.

    Why don’t I like salads?

    It’s an unfortunate quirk of evolution that vegetables are so good for us but they aren’t all immediately tasty to all of us. We have evolved to enjoy the sweet or umami (savoury) taste of higher energy foods, because starvation is a more immediate risk than long-term health.

    Vegetables aren’t particularly high energy but they are jam-packed with dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals, and health-promoting compounds called bioactives.

    Those bioactives are part of the reason vegetables taste bitter. Plant bioactives, also called phytonutrients, are made by plants to protect themselves against environmental stress and predators. The very things that make plant foods bitter, are the things that make them good for us.

    Unfortunately, bitter taste evolved to protect us from poisons, and possibly from over-eating one single plant food. So in a way, plant foods can taste like poison.

    For some of us, this bitter sensing is particularly acute, and for others it isn’t so bad. This is partly due to our genes. Humans have at least 25 different receptors that detect bitterness, and we each have our own genetic combinations. So some people really, really taste some bitter compounds while others can barely detect them.

    This means we don’t all have the same starting point when it comes to interacting with salads and veggies. So be patient with yourself. But the steps toward learning to like salads and veggies are the same regardless of your starting point.

    It takes time

    We can train our tastes because our genes and our receptors aren’t the end of the story. Repeat exposures to bitter foods can help us adapt over time. Repeat exposures help our brain learn that bitter vegetables aren’t posions.

    And as we change what we eat, the enzymes and other proteins in our saliva change too. This changes how different compounds in food are broken down and detected by our taste buds. How exactly this works isn’t clear, but it’s similar to other behavioural cognitive training.

    Add masking ingredients

    The good news is we can use lots of great strategies to mask the bitterness of vegetables, and this positively reinforces our taste training.

    Salt and fat can reduce the perception of bitterness, so adding seasoning and dressing can help make salads taste better instantly. You are probably thinking, “but don’t we need to reduce our salt and fat intake?” – yes, but you will get more nutritional bang-for-buck by reducing those in discretionary foods like cakes, biscuits, chips and desserts, not by trying to avoid them with your vegetables.

    Adding heat with chillies or pepper can also help by acting as a decoy to the bitterness. Adding fruits to salads adds sweetness and juiciness, this can help improve the overall flavour and texture balance, increasing enjoyment.

    Pairing foods you are learning to like with foods you already like can also help.

    The options for salads are almost endless, if you don’t like the standard garden salad you were raised on, that’s OK, keep experimenting.

    Experimenting with texture (for example chopping vegetables smaller or chunkier) can also help in finding your salad loves.

    Challenge your biases

    Challenging your biases can also help the salad situation. A phenomenon called the “unhealthy-tasty intuition” makes us assume tasty foods aren’t good for us, and that healthy foods will taste bad. Shaking that assumption off can help you enjoy your vegetables more.

    When researchers labelled vegetables with taste-focused labels, priming subjects for an enjoyable taste, they were more likely to enjoy them compared to when they were told how healthy they were.

    The bottom line

    Vegetables are good for us, but we need to be patient and kind with ourselves when we start trying to eat more.

    Try working with biology and brain, and not against them.

    And hold back from judging yourself or other people if they don’t like the salads you do. We are all on a different point of our taste-training journey.The Conversation

    Emma Beckett, Senior Lecturer (Food Science and Human Nutrition), School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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