There are ‘forever chemicals’ in our drinking water. Should standards change to protect our health?

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Today’s news coverage reports potentially unsafe levels of “forever chemicals” detected in drinking water supplies around Australia. These include human-made chemicals: perfluorooctane sulfonate (known as PFOS) and perflurooctanic acid (PFOA). They are classed under the broader category of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS chemicals.

The contaminants found in our drinking water are the same ones United States authorities warn can cause cancer over a long period of time, with reports warning there is “no safe level of exposure”.

In April, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) sent shock waves through the water industry around the world when it announced stricter advice on safe levels of PFOS/PFOA in drinking water. This reduced limits considered safe in supplies to zero and gave the water industry five years to meet legally enforceable limits of 4 parts per trillion.

So, should the same limits be enforced here in Australia? And how worried should we be that the drinking in many parts of Australia would fail the new US standards?

What are the health risks?

Medical knowledge about the human health effects of PFOS/PFOA is still emerging. An important factor is the bioaccumulation of these chemicals in different organs in the body over time.

Increased exposure of people to these chemicals has been associated with several adverse health effects. These include higher cholesterol, lower birth weights, modified immune responses, kidney and testicular cancer.

It has been very difficult to accurately track and measure effects of different levels of PFAS exposure on people. People may be exposed to PFAS chemicals in their everyday life through waterproofing of clothes, non-stick cookware coatings or through food and drinking water. PFAS can also be in pesticides, paints and cosmetics.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (on behalf of the World Health Organization) regards PFOA as being carcinogenic to humans and PFOS as possibly carcinogenic to humans.

child at water fountain outdoors
Is our drinking water safe? What about long-term risks? Volodymyr TVERDOKHLIB/Shutterstock

Our guidelines

Australian drinking water supplies are assessed against national water quality standards. These Australian Drinking Water Guidelines are continuously reviewed by industry and health experts that scan the international literature and update them accordingly.

All city and town water supplies across Australia are subject to a wide range of physical and chemical water tests. The results are compared to Australian water guidelines.

Some tests relate to human health considerations, such as levels of lead or bacteria. Others relate to “aesthetic” considerations, such as the appearance or taste of water. Most water authorities across Australia make water quality information and compliance with Australian guidelines freely available.

What about Australian PFOS and PFOA standards?

These chemicals can enter our drinking water system from many potential sources, such as via their use in fire-fighting foams or pesticides.

According to the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, PFOS should not exceed 0.07 micrograms per litre in drinking water. And PFOA should not exceed 0.56 micrograms per litre. One microgram is equivalent to one part per billion.

The concentration of these chemicals in water is incredibly small. And much of the advice on their concentration is provided in different units. Sometimes in micrograms or nannograms. The USEPA uses parts per trillion.

In parts per trillion (ppt) the Australian Guidelines for PFOS is 70 ppt and PFOA is 560 ppt. The USEPA’s new maximum contaminant levels (enforceable levels) are 4 ppt for both PFOS and also PFOA. Previous news reports have pointed out Australian guidelines for these chemicals in drinking water are up to 140 times higher than the USEPA permits.

Yikes! That seems like a lot

Today’s news report cites PFOS and PFOA water tests done at many different water supplies across Australia. Some water samples did not detect either chemicals. But most did, with the highest PFOS concentration 15.1–15.6 parts per trillion from Glenunga, South Australia. The highest PFOA concentration was reported from a small water supply in western Sydney, where it was detected at 5.17–9.66 parts per trillion.

Australia and the US are not alone. This is an enormous global problem.

One of the obvious challenges for the Australian water industry is that current water treatment processes may not be effective at removing PFOS or PFOA. The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines provide this advice:

Standard water treatment technologies including coagulation followed by physical separation, aeration, chemical oxidation, UV irradiation, and disinfection have little or no effect on PFOS or PFOA concentrations.

Filtering with activated carbon and reverse osmosis may remove many PFAS chemicals. But no treatment systems appear to be completely effective at their removal.

Removing these contaminants might be particularly difficult for small regional water supplies already struggling to maintain their water infrastructure. The NSW Auditor General criticised the planning for, and funding of, town water infrastructure in regional NSW back in 2020.

Where to from here?

The Australian water industry likely has little choice but to follow the US lead and address PFOS/PFAS contamination in drinking water. Along with lower thresholds, the US committed US$1 billion to water infrastructure to improve detection and water treatment. They will also now require:

Public water systems must monitor for these PFAS and have three years to complete initial monitoring (by 2027) […]

As today’s report notes, it is very difficult to find any recent data on PFOS and PFOA in Australian drinking water supplies. Australian regulators should also require ongoing and widespread monitoring of our major city and regional water supplies for these “forever chemicals”.

The bottom line for drinking tap water is to keep watching this space. Buying bottled water might not be effective (2021 US research detected PFAS in 39 out of 100 bottled waters). The USEPA suggests people can reduce PFAS exposure with measures including avoiding fish from contaminated waters and considering home filtration systems.

Correction: this article previously listed the maximum Australian Drinking Water Guidelines PFOA level as 0.056 micrograms per litre. The figure has been updated to show the correct level of 0.56 micrograms per litre.

Ian A. Wright, Associate Professor in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University

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

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  • Fitness Walking and Bodyweight Exercises – by Frank S. Ring

    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.

    A lot of exercise manuals assume that the reader has a “basic” body (nothing Olympian, but nothing damaged either). As we get older, increasingly few of us fall into the “but nothing damaged either” category!

    Here’s where Ring brings to bear his decades of experience as a coach and educator, and also his personal recovery from a serious back injury.

    The book covers direct, actionable exercise advice (with all manner of detail), and also offers mental health tips he’s learned along the way.

    Ring, like us, is a big fan of keeping things simple, so he focusses on “the core four” of bodyweight exercises:

    1. Pushups
    2. Squats
    3. Lunges
    4. Planks

    These four exercises get a whole chapter devoted to them, though! Because there are ways to make each exercise easier or harder, or have different benefits. For example, adjustments include:

    • Body angle
    • Points of contact
    • Speed
    • Pausing
    • Range of motion

    This, in effect, makes a few square meters of floor (and perhaps a chair or bench) your fully-equipped gym.

    As for walking? Ring enjoys and extols the health benefits, and/but also uses his walks a lot for assorted mental exercises, and recommends we try them too.

    A fine book for anyone who wants to gain and/or maintain good health, but doesn’t pressingly want to join a gym or start pumping iron!

    Pick up “Fitness Walking and Bodyweight Exercises: Supercharge Your Fitness, Build Body Strength, and Live Longer” on Amazon today!

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  • What Happens Every Day When You Quit Sugar For 30 Days

    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.

    We all know that sugar isn’t exactly a health food, but it can be hard to quit. How long can cravings be expected to last, and when can we expect to see benefits? Today’s video covers the timeline in a realistic yet inspiring fashion:

    What to expect on…

    Day 1: expect cravings and withdrawal symptoms including headaches, fatigue, mood swings, and irritability—as well as tiredness, without the crutch of sugar.

    Days 2 & 3: more of the same, plus likely objections from the gut, since your Candida albicans content will not be enjoying being starved of its main food source.

    Days 4–7: reduction of the above symptoms, better energy levels, improved sleep, and likely the gut will be adapting or have adapted.

    Days 8–14: beginning of weight loss, clearer skin, improved complexion; taste buds adapt too, making foods taste sweeter. Continued improvement in energy and focus, as well.

    Days 15–21: more of the same improvements, plus the immune system will start getting stronger around now. But watch out, because there may still be some cravings from time to time.

    Days 22–30: all of the above positive things, few or no cravings now, and enhanced metabolic health as a whole.

    For more specificity on each of these stages, enjoy:

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    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    The Not-So-Sweet Science Of Sugar Addiction

    Take care!

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  • Escape From The Clutches Of Shame

    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.

    We’ve written before about managing various emotions, including “negative” ones. We put that in “scare quotes” because they also all have positive aspects, that are just generally overshadowed by the fact that the emotions themselves are not pleasant. But for example…

    We evolved our emotions, including the “negative” ones, for our own benefit as a species:

    • Stress keeps us safe by making sure we take important situations seriously
    • Anger keeps us safe by protecting us from threats
    • Disgust keeps us safe by helping us to avoid things that might cause disease
    • Anxiety keeps us safe by ensuring we don’t get complacent
    • Guilt keeps us safe by ensuring we can function as a community
    • Sadness keeps us safe by ensuring we value things that are important to us, and learn to become averse to losing them
    • …and so on

    You can read more about how to turn these off (or rather, at least pause them) when they’re misfiring and/or just plain not convenient, here:

    The Off-Button For Your Brain

    While it’s generally considered good to process feelings instead of putting them aside, the fact is that sometimes we have to hold it together while we do something, such that we can later have an emotional breakdown at a convenient time and place, instead of the supermarket or bank or office or airport or while entertaining houseguests or… etc.

    Today, though, we’re not putting things aside, for the most part (though we will get to that too).

    We’ll be dealing with shame, which is closely linked to the guilt we mentioned in that list there.

    See also: Reconsidering the Differences Between Shame and Guilt

    Shame’s purpose

    Shame’s purpose is to help us (as a community) avoid anti-social behavior for which we might be shamed, and thus exiled from the in-group. It helps us all function better together, which is how we thrive as a species.

    Shame, therefore, is often assumed to be something we can (and possibly should) use to ensure that we (ourselves and/or others) “do the right thing”.

    But there’s a catch…

    Shame only works negatively

    You may be thinking “well duh, it’s a negative emotion”, but this isn’t about negativity in the subjective sense, but rather, positive vs negative motivation:

    • Positive motivation: motivation that encourages us to do a given thing
    • Negative motivation: motivation that encourages us to specifically not do a given thing

    Shame is only useful as a negative motivation, i.e., encouraging us to specifically not do a given thing.

    Examples:

    • You cannot (in any way that sticks, at least) shame somebody into doing more housework.
    • You can, however, shame somebody out of drinking and driving.

    This distinction matters a lot when it comes to how we are with our children, or with our employees (or those placed under us in a management structure), or with people who otherwise look to us as leaders.

    It also matters when it comes to how we are with ourselves.

    Here’s a paper about this, by the way, with assorted real-world examples:

    The negative side of motivation: the role of shame

    From those examples, we can see that attempts to shame someone (including oneself) into doing something positive will generally not only fail, they will actively backfire, and people (including oneself) will often perform worse than pre-shaming.

    Looking inwards: healthy vs unhealthy shame

    Alcoholics Anonymous and similar programs use a degree of pro-social shame to help members abstain from the the act being shamed.

    Rather than the unhelpful shame of exiling a person from a group for doing a shameful thing, however, they take an approach of laying out the shame for all to see, feeling the worst of it and moving past it, which many report as being quite freeing emotionally while still [negatively] motivational to not use the substance in question in the future (and similar for activity-based addictions/compulsions, such as gambling, for example).

    As such, if you are trying to avoid doing a thing, shame can be a useful motivator. So by all means, if it’s appropriate to your goals, tell your friends/family about how you are now quitting this or that (be it an addiction, or just something generally unhealthy that you’d like to strike off your regular consumption/activity list).

    You will still be tempted! But the knowledge of the shame you would feel as a result will help keep you from straying into that temptation.

    If you are trying to do a thing, however, (even something thought of in a negative frame, such as “lose weight”), then shame is not helpful and you will do best to set it aside.

    You can shame yourself out of drinking sodas (if that’s your plan), but you can’t shame yourself into eating healthy meals. And even if your plan is just shaming yourself out of eating unhealthy food… Without a clear active positive replacement to focus on instead, all you’ll do there is give yourself an eating disorder. You’ll eat nothing when people are looking, and then either a) also eat next to nothing in private or else b) binge in secret, and feel terrible about yourself, neither of which are any good for you whatsoever.

    Similarly, you can shame yourself out of bed, but you can’t shame yourself into the gym:

    Is there positive in the negative? Understanding the role of guilt and shame in physical activity self-regulation

    Let it go

    There are some cases, especially those where shame has a large crossover with guilt, that it serves no purpose whatsoever, and is best processed and then put aside.

    For example, if you did something that you are ashamed of many years ago, and/or feel guilty about something that you did many years ago, but this is not an ongoing thing for you (i.e., it was a one-off bad decision, or a bad habit that have now long since dropped), then feeling shame and/or guilt about that does not benefit you or anyone else.

    As to how to process it and put it aside, if your thing harmed someone else, you could see if there’s a way to try to make amends (even if without confessing ill, such as by acting anonymously to benefit the person/group you harmed).

    And then, forgive yourself. Regardless of whether you feel like you deserve it. Make the useful choice, that better benefits you, and by extension those around you.

    If you are religious, you may find that of help here too. We’re a health science publication not a theological one, but for example: Buddhism preaches compassion including for oneself. Judaism preaches atonement. Christianity, absolution. For Islam, mercy is one of the holiest ideals of the religion, along with forgiveness. So while religion isn’t everyone’s thing, for those for whom it is, it can be an asset in this regard.

    For a more worldly approach:

    To Err Is Human; To Forgive, Healthy (Here’s How To Do It) ← this goes for when the forgiveness in question is for yourself, too—and we do write about that there (and how)!

    Take care!

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  • The Easiest Way To Take Up Journaling

    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.

    Dear Diary…

    It’s well-established that journaling is generally good for mental health. It’s not a magical panacea, as evidenced by The Diaries of Franz Kafka for example (that man was not in good mental health). But for most of us, putting our thoughts and feelings down on paper (or the digital equivalent) is a good step for tidying our mind.

    And as it can be said: mental health is also just health.

    But…

    What to write about?

    It’s about self-expression (even if only you will read it), and…

    ❝Writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events has been found to result in improvements in both physical and psychological health, in non-clinical and clinical populations.

    In the expressive writing paradigm, participants are asked to write about such events for 15–20 minutes on 3–5 occasions.

    Those who do so generally have significantly better physical and psychological outcomes compared with those who write about neutral topics.❞

    Source: Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing

    In other words, write about whatever moves you.

    Working from prompts

    If you read the advice above and thought “but I don’t know what moves me”, then fear not. It’s perfectly respectable to work from prompts, such as:

    • What last made you cry?
    • What last made you laugh?
    • What was a recent meaningful moment with family?
    • What is a serious mistake that you made and learned from?
    • If you could be remembered for just one thing, what would you want it to be?

    In fact, sometimes working from prompts has extra benefits, precisely because it challenges us to examine things we might not otherwise think about.

    If a prompt asks “What tends to bring you most joy recently?” and the question stumps you, then a) you now are prompted to look at what you can change to find more joy b) you probably wouldn’t have thought of this question—most depressed people don’t, and if you cannot remember recent joy, then well, we’re not here to diagnose, but let’s just say that’s a symptom.

    A quick aside: if you or a loved oneare prone to depressive episodes, here’s a good resource, by the way:

    The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need

    And in the event of the mental health worst case scenario:

    How To Stay Alive (When You Really Don’t Want To)

    The six prompts we gave earlier are just ideas that came to this writer’s mind, but they’re (ok, some bias here) very good ones. If you’d like more though, here’s a good resource:

    550+ Journal Prompts: The Ultimate List

    The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

    While it’s not good to get stuck in ruminative negative thought spirals, it is good to have a safe outlet to express one’s negative thoughts/feelings:

    The Psychological Health Benefits of Accepting Negative Emotions and Thoughts: Laboratory, Diary, and Longitudinal Evidence

    Remember, your journal is (or ideally, should be) a place without censure. If you fear social consequences should your journal be read, then using an app with a good security policy and encryption options can be a good idea for journaling

    Finch App is a good free option if it’s not too cutesy for your taste, because in terms of security:

    • It can’t leak your data because your data never leaves your phone (unless you manually back up your data and then you choose to put it somewhere unsafe)
    • It has an option to require passcode/biometrics etc to open the app

    As a bonus, it also has very many optional journaling prompts, and also (optional) behavioral activation prompts, amongst more other offerings that we don’t have room to list here.

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • Chickpeas vs Soybeans – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing chickpeas to soybeans, we picked the soybeans.

    Why?

    Both are great! But:

    In terms of macros, chickpeas have more than 3x the carbs and only very slightly more fiber, while soybeans have more than 2x the protein. Given the ratio of carbs to fiber in each, soybeans also have the lower glycemic index, so all in all, we’re calling this a win for soybeans.

    In the category of vitamins, chickpeas have more of vitamins A, B3, B5, and B9, while soybeans have more of vitamins B1, B2, B6, C, K, and choline—another win for soybeans.

    When it comes to minerals, chickpeas have more manganese and zinc, while soybeans have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium—meaning soybeans win yet again.

    Two extra things to know:

    • Chickpeas are naturally high in FODMAPs, which can be problematic for a minority of people—however, canned chickpeas are not.
    • Soybeans are famously high in phytoestrogens, however, the human body cannot actually use these as estrogen (we are not plants and our physiology is different). This means that on the one hand they won’t help against menopause (aside from the ways in which any nutrient-dense food would help), but on the other, they aren’t a cancer risk, and no, they won’t feminize men/boys in the slightest. You/they would be more at risk from beef and dairy, as the cows have usually been given extra estrogen, and those are animal hormones, not plant hormones.

    All in all, chickpeas are a wonderful food, but soybeans beat them by most nutritional metrics.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Why You Can’t Skimp On Amino Acids ← soybeans also have a great amino acid profile!

    Enjoy!

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  • Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety – by Dr. Robert Duff

    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.

    We’ve reviewed other anxiety books before, so what makes this one different? Mostly, it’s the style.

    Aside from swearing approximately once every two lines (so you might want to skip this one if that would bother you), Dr. Duff’s writing is very down-to-earth in other ways too, making it unpretentiously comfortable and accessible without failing to draw upon the wealth of good-practice, evidence-based advice he has to offer.

    To that end, he talks about what anxiety is and isn’t, and goes over various approaches, explaining them in a “about” fashion, and also a “how to” fashion, covering areas such as CBT, somatic therapies, social support, when talk therapy is most likely to help.

    The book is a quick read (a modest 74 pages), and it’s refreshing that it hasn’t been padded unnecessarily, unlike a lot of books that could have been a fraction of the size without losing value.

    Bottom line: if you (or perhaps someone you care about) would benefit from a straight-to-the-point, no-BS approach to dealing with anxiety (that’s actually evidence-based, not just a “get over it” dismissal), then this is the book for you.

    Click here to check out Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety, and indeed do just that!

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