Michigan researchers are getting $771,168 to investigate whether the "forever chemicals" found in drinking water, cookware, and countless consumer products may be fueling lupus and other autoimmune diseases in women.
Lupus, a serious autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks healthy tissue, disproportionately affects women and people from certain racial and ethnic groups. Despite that, its causes remain largely unknown. Autoimmune diseases collectively rank among the top causes of death for adult women in the United States, making the search for environmental triggers an urgent public health priority.
The study, funded through a Department of Health and Human Services grant, will focus on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. These synthetic compounds resist heat, water, and oil, which is why they've been used in everything from firefighting foam to nonstick pans for decades. They break down so slowly in the environment and in the human body that scientists call them forever chemicals. Low-level chronic exposure is now considered routine for most Americans.
Researchers suspect PFAS may disrupt immune function by altering the DNA of lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell central to immune response. The new study will examine whether those chemical changes are linked to lupus development and flare-ups.
The team will draw on two established datasets: the Michigan Lupus Epidemiology and Surveillance program, which tracks lupus patients and healthy controls in southeastern Michigan, and the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation, a multi-site cohort that has followed women for over 20 years. Together, the datasets give researchers an unusually long window into how chemical exposures and immune health shift over time in the same individuals.
Michigan has been at the center of national concerns about PFAS contamination, with communities near military bases and industrial sites dealing with elevated levels in groundwater. Whether that exposure is contributing to immune disease in the state's residents is a question this research aims to begin answering.
Results from the study are expected to inform future prevention and public health guidance, though that work is likely several years away.
