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From 1980 to 2017, Wilmington, North Carolina (NC), residents unknowingly consumed high levels of PFAS through drinking water. Some of these PFAS are expected to have short biological half-lives, and current biological sampling will miss these exposures. To assess historical PFAS exposures, we (1) determined PFAS levels in serum samples of Wilmington, NC residents obtained during the years 2010-2016, (2) examined temporal trends of serum PFAS over this period, and (3) associated serum PFAS levels with PFAS concentrations in drinking water. We quantified 56 PFAS, including ultrashort-chain PFAS, in 119 adult human serum samples and 47 PFAS in water samples from 2017. Twenty PFAS were detected in >50% of serum samples; perfluoromethoxyacetic acid (PFMOAA) and trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) exhibited the highest median concentrations (PFMOAA: 42 ng/mL; TFA: 17 ng/mL). PFMOAA and TFA were also the dominant PFAS in Wilmington drinking water, accounting for 95% of quantifiable PFAS. The serum-to-water ratio was linearly correlated with "effective" PFAS chain length, indicating that PFAS with longer chain length and a sulfonic acid group are more bioaccumulative. While chain length is important for bioaccumulation, this study highlights that exposures to high concentrations of ultrashort-chain PFAS in drinking water contribute to their dominance in human serum.
Cheng et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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