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Prescription Meds Get Trapped In Disturbing Pee-To-Food-To-Pee Loop (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A study published Tuesday in Environmental Science and Technology is the first to validate the long-held suspicion that pharmaceuticals may get trapped in infinite pee-to-food-to-pee loops, exposing consumers to drug doses with unknown health effects. In a randomized, single-blind pilot study, researchers found that anti-convulsive epilepsy drug carbamazepine, which is released in urine, can accumulate in crops irrigated with recycled water -- treated sewage -- and end up in the urine of produce-eaters not on the drugs. While the amounts of the drug in produce-eater's pee were four orders of magnitude lower than what is seen in the pee of patients purposefully taking the drugs, researchers speculate that the trace amounts could still have health effects in some people, such as those with a genetic sensitivity to the drugs, pregnant women, children, and those who eat a lot of produce, such as vegetarians. And with the growing practice of reclaiming wastewater for crop irrigation -- particularly in places that face water shortages such as California, Israel, and Spain --- the produce contamination could become more common and more potent, the authors argue.
I'm surprised the concentrations are high enough to only be 4 orders of magnitude off from a person actively taking the medication. I would have expected it to dilute a lot more than that over the course of irrigating a field of crops, picked, processed, cooked, and finally ingested.
I read the internet for the articles.
I suppose, if you can somehow shove your fruits and vegetables through them...
Bleh. Wish the original paper wasn't paywalled, this vegetarian business doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you take that produce and feed it to animals, and then eat the animals, you should have at least as much exposure as from eating the produce straight. If the drug in question is one which bioaccumulates, then your exposure should be higher than it would be from eating the produce straight. It would be nice to see what the paper said specifically, rather than getting it second hand.
If the drug in question is one which bioaccumulates...
And that's the big question, isn't it? I hope somebody's looking into it, because without knowing how much it accumulates in the animal's bodies we can't judge how much of a concern it is. And, even if it isn't, the animal's waste products are probably being used as fertilizer, sending it right back into whatever crops it's used on. I'm not an alarmist, but we clearly need to know more about this.
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Can someone tell me which veggies will contain the most oxycontin? Asking for a friend.
Please God, don't let it be brussels sprouts. They give me wicked gas.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But if you want a perfect example of something that doesn't break down but has a serious effect: lead. Your body doesn't convert lead to anything but lead. Wouldn't it be great if our bodies had nuclear reactors that could split lead into something else?
But anyway, what's the problem with this carb-whatever? Isn't it good that everyone will be less likely to have seizures?
After passing through so many kidneys it must be pure.
No, you're supposed to pee into one if you take medications.
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If the drug in question is one which bioaccumulates
Then the original patient wouldn't be whizzing so much of it out.
Have gnu, will travel.
and discharges into water
Which is a strong indication it does not bioaccumulate in humans. Another is that they use this chemical as a drug. A drug which bioaccumulates would quickly become a poison (eg, using mercury to treat syphilis) and would for one shot attempts at fixing illnesses not a long term medication for treating epileptic conditions.
Now the human body is relatively good at dealing with toxins, so it may be that cows and whatnot might bioaccumulate this while humans do not. But I doubt that's happening.
No, you wouldn't. The thing you are overlooking is that these drugs get into the water supply because humans pee them out. With vanishingly rare exceptions, chemicals which are in human urine do not bio-accumulate. The simple explanation of this is that chemicals which bio-accumulate do not cross the membrane filters used by the kidneys to filter blood and thus stay in the blood.
So, since these drugs do NOT build up in the human body to any significant extent, they will, also, not build up in the bodies of animals.Basically, plants will likely contain ALL of the drugs which they took up from the water for their entire life cycle (from germination to harvest) while animals will only have the drugs which were contained in their last meal or three.
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