Do Oats Rid Your Body Of PFAS?

Despite recent headlines, the answer is probably not.

Pictured: Probably not a miracle cure for PFAS and/or anything else. Photo by Łukasz Rawa on Unsplash

As the parent of a toddler, oats have become a daily staple. Our household used to enjoy the occasional breakfast of instant oats, but these days we are cooking them on a daily basis to cries of “Porridge daddy! Porridge now!”.

Parenthood is great fun.

And according to new headlines, we are not just eating a tasty morning meal. Oats are, apparently, able to rid our bodies of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. If you haven’t heard of PFAS, they are often in the headlines being called “forever chemicals”. In short, people are concerned about PFAS because they don’t really break down in our bodies and they are potentially harmful. There are some concerns that they could cause cancer, although the evidence isn’t very strong yet.

Unfortunately for the oatmeal lovers out there, the data doesn’t support this idea at all. Whether or not you’re trying to avoid PFAS, oats almost certainly don’t help at all.

Let’s look at the data.

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