Sunday, October 18, 2026 Evidence-led medical research news
The First Cohort
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pfas

5 stories tagged "pfas"

Autoimmune & Inflammation

Pesticides Outlawed in the 1970s Are Still in Women's Blood, and They Track With Chronic Inflammation

French scientists screened 45 banned or barely-regulated chemicals in 468 women's blood. Two pesticides cancelled decades ago still tracked with elevated inflammation, and the PFAS quietly pushed an immune signal down.

Metabolic & Weight

Forever Chemicals, Pregnancy, and the Vitamin That Might Decide Who Gets Hurt

Early-pregnancy PFAS tracked with gestational diabetes in a 420-woman China cohort, but almost entirely in mothers already low on vitamin D. A 5,229-pregnancy US analysis found no added risk at all. The gap between them may come down to one cheap blood test.

Investigations

Canada Went Looking for the Forever Chemicals Nobody Tracks and Found a Dozen of Them in Women's Blood

Scientists went hunting for the replacement and precursor PFAS almost nobody measures. In Canadian women's blood they found a dozen of them, riding alongside the 'banned' legacy chemicals that still turn up in nearly everyone.

Brain & Aging

They Measured the Forever Chemicals in the Umbilical Cord Itself. The Babies With the Most Scored Lower at Two.

Scientists skipped the usual stand-in and measured the forever chemicals in the umbilical cord blood itself. By age two, the babies carrying more of them scored lower on communication and motor development, and the companies that made these chemicals knew the risk for decades.

Investigations

We Fixed the Ozone Hole. The Replacement Is Now in Your Blood.

A new Lancaster modeling study finds CFC replacement refrigerants and anesthetic gases have rained 335,500 tonnes of the forever chemical TFA across the planet since 2000, and it is now the dominant PFAS in American blood.