Study: Forever chemicals linked to gut inflammation in children after early exposure

Prenatal and early life exposure to Pfas mixtures is probably linked to higher levels of intestinal inflammation in children, new first-of-its-kind research shows. Intestinal inflammation can cause irritable bowel diseases, like ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease and colorectal cancer.

While Pfas has been linked to irritable bowel disease and intestinal inflammation in adults, the new peer-reviewed Mt Sinai study is the first to look at how the chemicals impact children during a critical developmental phase.

The authors checked and followed mother-child pairs from during prenatal development, or just after birth, through up to 11 years of age. The findings showed a strong correlation between elevated Pfas levels around birth and markers of inflammation across the children in the cohort.

“The idea that the mom-baby dyads are exposed to these very toxic chemicals this early in the children’s’ life, and that that leads to later intestinal inflammation, is a very important finding,” said Vishal Midya, a study co-author and researcher with Mt Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine. “There is so much of a knowledge gap in this area, and a gap in recognizing how important the early life period is to later onset of inflammatory bowel disease.”

Pfas are a class of at least 16,000 compounds often used to help products resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and accumulate in the environment, and they are linked to serious health problems such as cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, immune disorders and birth defects.

Pfas are known to be particularly dangerous for developing children, and prenatal or early childhood exposure is linked to a range of diseases, from reproductive harms to ADHD.

The new study checked for Pfas either in maternal blood collected during pregnancy, umbilical cord blood, or newborn dried blood spots across 107 mother-child pairs in the United States and Mexico. They found as many as 955 Pfas metabolites, but focused on 46 most prevalent compounds.

These include Pfas compounds like PFOA and PFOS, which are considered the most common and dangerous, though they have been partially phased out of production. The authors also found smaller, more recently developed Pfas for which there is much less public health data, and which industry has claimed are safer.

Research often focuses on how an individual Pfas compound affects human health, but humans are typically exposed to multiple at a time, so the authors looked at mixtures of chemicals.

“We’re exposed to thousands of thousands of chemicals to tease out the one or two 10 chemicals. It doesn’t mimic the real world by putting it together as a mixture,” Midya said.

The authors then looked for fecal calprotectin, which is a biomarker of intestinal inflammation commonly used to monitor irritable bowel syndrome, when the children were older. The fecal calprotectin does not confirm the children are suffering from a specific disease, but it is a marker of inflammation that frequently leads to disease.

Though the study is the largest to investigate early life Pfas exposures for intestinal inflammation, the authors say one of its limitations is the small sample size.

Mothers can take some steps to protect themselves, including using water filtration systems that remove Pfas, buying organic, avoiding waterproof clothing, and avoiding stain guards. However, the findings more broadly should be used to help shape policy that protects mothers and children, said Manasi Agrawal, a study co-author with Mt Sinai.

“We are showing that there is an early life pathway to this, and understanding the disease and its origin makes the prevention part – the ‘What can we do?’ part – much more viable,” Agrawal said.