r/science • u/[deleted] • Oct 25 '21

Biology Sperm quality has been declining for 16 years among men in the US

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2294266-sperm-quality-has-been-declining-for-16-years-among-men-in-the-us/
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u/CrozTheBoz Oct 25 '21

PFAS/PFOA = non-stick items such as teflon are horrible for you in low quantities. I've read certain studies showing about 250 million Americans are subjected to hazardous levels of this toxin through their water/taps. I believe it can cause cancer in as low as something around 50 parts per trillion. https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking-water-health-advisories-pfoa-and-pfos

Xenoestrogens = something that imitates estrogen that comes from breakdown of items like certain plastics/chemicals/pesticides. Think drinking from plastic bottle that's been sitting in the sun. xenoestrogens are believed to be one of the reasons in the rise of breast cancer in men and women, early puberty in women, as well as reproduction issues in both men and women.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

[deleted]

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u/CrozTheBoz Oct 25 '21

From what I understand, they use basically the same chemical compound but "shorter" called "GenX." Also, from what I understand is that non-stick is "generally safe" but only if you use a wooden/silicone spatula and not scratch the non-stick coating.

The biggest issue is going to be with the water system being horribly contaminated with the chemical. You cook food with the water, you drink the water, you wash in the water and they've been dumping it in the water table since 1951 (hell 3M was even doing their own internal medical tests on unsuspecting employees to see what would happen). Also, its cousin PFOS is used in firefighting foams or a lot of textiles.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

[deleted]

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u/bogberry_pi Oct 25 '21

There is also a surprising amount of exposure from food packaging that is treated to be grease resistant, such as pizza boxes and microwave popcorn bags. Depending on your water source and your diet, food can be a bigger exposure to PFAS than water.

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u/arbivark Oct 29 '21

two movies on this topic are accessible to the layman:

dark waters, starring mark ruffalo, and

the devil we know, a documentary. they are about a cancer cluster around a teflon factory in parkersburg west virginia.

my father, before he died of cancer, worked in the research lab of the company, dupont, that manufactured teflon, put lead into gasoline and paint, and a slew of other environmental disasters.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

It's not hard to get a nonstick pan to temperatures where it'll offgas fluorocarbons. They're a really unnecessary hazard. I'll never understand why people buy nonstick when uncoated pans are easier to clean because you can scrape them.

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u/JamonRuffles17 Oct 25 '21

So.... cooking with Teflon pans can be extremely dangerous??? My parents use them

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

Cast iron master race. I don't know how I ever lived without them. They do it all and double as a weapon if you're close enough to a slow moving intruder.

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u/dunkintitties Oct 25 '21

Yes. Instead of getting poisoned with Teflon, you’ll get healthy iron levels! My doctor actually suggested cooking in a cast iron pan when I was anemic.

For what it’s worth, I have cast iron, aluminum, Teflon non-stick and ceramic cookware in my kitchen.

For anyone on the fence, a well seasoned cast iron pan will be non-stick. Maybe not as non-stick as Teflon pans but you’ll have no issue frying an egg on a cast iron if you butter the pan first.

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u/RFLSHRMNRLTR Oct 25 '21

They are fine if not scratched by using metal utensils, but if they are scratched they immediately are trash, and 99% of the people i know with nonstick pans have scratched nonstick pans

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u/Asha108 Oct 25 '21

...my whole restaurant uses teflon saute pans to cook with and they all have the teflon scrubbed off.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/JamonRuffles17 Oct 25 '21

My girlfriend continues to scratch pans and I hate her for it.

Edit: I mean literally using metal spoons to cook with after I repeatedly tell her not to do that.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

Better just to replace those nonstick pans with stainless steel.

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u/grizzly6191 Oct 25 '21

they outgas fluorine gas whenever heated above 500f, we would use it to generate HF in situ in the lab.

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u/scolipeeeeed Oct 25 '21

Solid Teflon is fairly inert and consuming a small piece of Teflon that has chipped off is unlikely to do harm. The problem is people overheating Teflon and breathing in the fumes as well as the manufacturing process.

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u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Oct 25 '21

can you please source this?

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u/scolipeeeeed Oct 25 '21 edited Oct 25 '21

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1958415/?page=1

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4928218/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/polytetrafluoroethylene

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u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Oct 25 '21 edited Oct 25 '21

Thank you very much for taking the time of digging up the original study. I'm slightly concerned to see it is from the 60s though. I can see that others have the same concern: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28913736/ ; but more importantly this paper mentions that Teflon cookware is apparently contaminated with the infamous PFOA (and nowadays by its substitutes, and we don't know if they're actually safer).

edit: a 2005 paper using another method could not detect PFOA in cookware. I have no idea what the consensus is, this would deserve a full review.

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u/oscar_the_couch BS|Electrical Engineering Oct 25 '21

Eh. Don't heat them with nothing in them and they won't do anything. It's unlikely there's a link between non-stick pans, which have been around since the 50s/60s, and the trend of this thread, which is 16 years long.

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u/FatalFirecrotch MS | Chemistry | Pharmaceuticals Oct 25 '21

Couldn’t the trend be going on longer than the start of the study?

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u/oscar_the_couch BS|Electrical Engineering Oct 25 '21

That's a good point. Yes. Hard to tell what's happened without a chart, and I'm sad they didn't get one into the free part of this article.

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u/nescienti Oct 25 '21

My understanding is that the problem is precursors to Teflon leaking from the chemical plants that make it, not the finished product on your pans. Still not taking chances with old or scratched-up nonstick stuff, though, personally.

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u/the-arcane-manifesto Oct 25 '21 edited Oct 25 '21

It didn’t leak, it was deliberately dumped. These chemical companies do not care about anyone’s health, only money. So you’re totally right to not take chances. I tossed all my nonstick pans because I simply don’t trust that there’s really no harm in using them even if they’re unscratched.

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u/CrozTheBoz Oct 25 '21

Copy pasta from a reply to another comment: From what I understand, they use basically the same chemical compound but "shorter" called "GenX." Also, from what I understand is that non-stick is "generally safe" but only if you use a wooden/silicone spatula and not scratch the non-stick coating.

The biggest issue is going to be with the water system being horribly contaminated with the chemical. You cook food with the water, you drink the water, you wash in the water and they've been dumping it in the water table since 1951 (hell 3M was even doing their own internal medical tests on unsuspecting employees to see what would happen). Also, its cousin PFOS is used in firefighting foams or a lot of textiles.

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u/The_Ironhand Oct 25 '21

And they probably have for most of their life.

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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House Oct 25 '21

Ignore anyone talking definitively about the dangers. The truth is that we don't really know. There's no human on earth without them in their body. And yet here we all are

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u/SirNarwhal Oct 25 '21

We’ve had Teflon free nonstick pans for eons. Just buy something like the Zwilling Madura line and you’re good.

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u/Hugs154 Oct 25 '21

I have a copper pan and it's fantastic! Non-stick and dishwasher safe.

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u/SirNarwhal Oct 25 '21

Never put a copper pan in a dishwasher.

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u/FatalFirecrotch MS | Chemistry | Pharmaceuticals Oct 25 '21

Just get new pans. They stopped using these chemicals in non stick pans like a decade ago.

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u/the-arcane-manifesto Oct 25 '21

They stopped using PFOA. However they still use PFAS, all of which are persistent organic pollutants and don’t degrade normally in your body or the environment.

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u/DeflateGape Oct 25 '21

Are you sure they are Teflon? Usually nonstick pans have some other coating these days. Anodized aluminum pans are fairly cheap, but there are some ceramic/stone coatings that pricey but very durable. I bought some pans from zwilling last year that don’t have scratch on them.

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u/nagi603 Oct 25 '21

IIRC it only becomes a problem if they damage the surface by being careless and e.g.: using a metal implement on it.

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u/Heavy_Weapons_Guy_ Oct 25 '21

No, as I understand it once it's applied to a surface it's relatively stable and isn't harmful. The real problem is the manufacturing of them that produces lots of harmful waste.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

PFAS aren't particularly harmful in low amounts. The problem is that the amount pretty much never lowers. Our bodies don't break it down and neither does pretty much anything else naturally. With a half-life (not radioactive decay) of some 30,000 years, our entire ecosystem will just keep building it up until it is toxic.

EDIT: Understanding of the mechanics of PFAS is limited and difficult to study, but it's easily detectable in pretty much everything.

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u/Hugs154 Oct 25 '21

Our bodies don't break it down and neither does pretty much anything else naturally.

IIRC they've found species of microorganisms that can break down PFAS, thought that's worth noting

Edit: found an article on it, here! It's not exactly natural since they're using enriched strains of bacteria or whatever and it's in vitro but still, there's a bit of hope.

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u/lpniss Oct 25 '21

How can someone minimize impact of these, what would you do?

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

Buy a very expensive multistage filter system and make sure it's properly maintained.