Cambridge scientists have spotted gut bacteria that greedily soak up PFAS “forever chemicals,” then ferry them safely out of the body in animal tests, removing up to three-quarters of the toxins within minutes. Their findings hint at probiotic pills that could shield people from PFAS-linked cancers, fertility issues, and heart disease while lawmakers scramble to rein in 4,700 widespread compounds.
Oh fuck I mean I would love this to be real but this is going to be abused so much in the next couple years. Supermarket shelves and social media posts will fucking be filled with drinks and pills containing (probably nonviable forms) these bacteria by the loads. Good luck everyone.
Also most of us already have enough microplastic embedded in our brains to last a lifetime.
And a few years later the bacteria is found to cause even worse diseases…
I know it’s a joke, but that’s almost certainly not going to be the case. Pathogenic bacteria have fundamentally different metabolism and genes.
What is more likely is either: ecological imbalance or the bacteria only metabolises the harmful chemicals under extreme deprivation of other carbon sources, which is never realistic, so they never do
Well I mean if people throw off their gut microbiome by overloading on this bacteria, it might still be harmful in that way. It does not need to be pathogenic in that sense.
Its actually hard to survive the human gut
But it is neutralized by microplastics…
But before that they will discover some nutrients which are very beneficial for this bacteria so people will also consume that by the loads.