Your microbiome is always taking one for the team. Improving your digestion, supporting your immune system, and protecting your cells from pathogens, the bacteria in your body work hard to keep you healthy. (You are their home, after all.) But it turns out that they may be helping you in other, more surprising ways, too, protecting you from toxins that could take years to neutralize on your own.
In fact, a team of researchers has identified several species of bacteria in the human microbiome that can soak up perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS for short, when introduced into the bodies of mice, absorbing the harmful “forever chemicals” that can stick around in humans for years. Revealing the results in Nature Microbiology, the team says that these species may already be working hard to remove the PFAS from our bodies — an effort that we might be able to encourage ...
