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For the most part, what happens is nothing. PTFE is completely biologically inert, which is why it's commonly used in surgical implants and prosthetics. Only

For the most part, what happens is nothing. PTFE is completely biologically inert, which is why it's commonly used in surgical implants and prosthetics. Only the finest particles (<100 nm) have been established to present a biological hazard, and these are very hard to come by. Ingested PTFE passes right through the digestive system unaltered. You can scrape the non-stick coating off of all your pans and eat it, and there will no detectable fluorinated chemicals in your blood. However, if you heat that nonstick pan above 600 deg F, the decomposition products can easily injure you, and sometimes worse. But even in this case, and main danger does not appear to be microfine PTFE particles, but rather chemical nasties like fluoroacetates. There are many studies on this. One example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11042093 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11042093 - "Pulmonary effects induced by ultrafine PTFE particles"

munk-a 7y ago
Just to clarify, if a large quantity of PTFE particles was introduced into your blood stream are you stating that wouldn't deprive your cells of oxygen? I think you're making some health related claims and assumptions that may be correct in limited circumstances but haven't been sufficiently studied to come to a good conclusion on.
- nate_meurer 7y ago
  Umm... yes? Why would PTFE "deprive cells of oxygen"? What cells? What size particles? Do you think they'd block your arteries or something? Why would that be any different than any other material? And how exactly would such particles get into your body? By injection? PTFE is chemically and biologically inert. It's well studied, and has enjoyed extensive medical use inside peoples' bodies for over half a century. I'm aware of no evidence that PTFE in your body is harmful in any form or quantity that is known to actually occur in humans. If you have any evidence to the contrary, I'd love to hear it.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    The process to ensure your cells get enough oxygen is a complex one. When you're exercising heavily certain chemical signals are sent out to ask the heart to increase blood flow to compensate for the high consumption of oxygen - similarly injuries produce stressor signals when the body is damaged and bleeding (since the lowered blood pressure decreases the efficiency of the heart's ability to deliver oxygen) - if an inert chemical was introduced into the blood stream slowly it'd gradually reduce the amount of oxygen carried in blood as it flows through your body by decreasing the proportion of red blood cells per volume, to compensate maybe your heart needs to beat a bit quicker deliver the same amount of oxygen via blood. Keeping your blood clean of impurities is traditionally (mostly) handled by the kidneys, if some PTFE is introduced into the blood stream does PTFE recognize this impurity as a dilution - will it properly filter it out? How efficient is that filtering and how much will it stress your kidneys? Basically, bodies are complex objects - this is what studies are for and long term effects can take time to be detected. I don't have any evidence to the contrary, but I am skeptical of how conclusive the supporting evidence is and would place the onus on proving harmlessness rather than harmfulness.
    - nate_meurer 7y ago
      You've invented a new medical hazard, which makes no sense whatsoever. If you were to somehow introduce enough solid matter into your blood that it lowers your RBC count on a volumetric basis, then you'd have far bigger problems than oxygen transport in general. And at that point, it wouldn't matter what the material is. And you still haven't answered the question: how do you imagine such a large amount of powdered PTFE would get into your body? PTFE can't be digested, and there's no evidence that it's passed to the blood stream though inhalation. Are you really afraid that someone's going to inject you with a specially formulated suspension of ultra-fine PTFE? The rest of your post is a bunch of mumbo jumbo. > injuries produce stressor signals when the body is damaged and bleeding (since the lowered blood pressure decreases the efficiency of the heart's ability to deliver oxygen) Not sure what "signals" you think you're talking about, but our compensation for traumatic hypovolemia is triggered by vascular baroreceptors, a mechanism has nothing to do with the effect of foreign particles in our blood. > Keeping your blood clean of impurities is traditionally (mostly) handled by the kidneys, if some PTFE is introduced into the blood stream does PTFE recognize this impurity as a dilution - will it properly filter it out? No, the kidneys do not filter out solids. That's not how they work. Your body has ways to deal with foreign particles, which vary widely depending on the nature of the material -- particle size and shape, reactivity, opsonizability, etc. None of these ways involve the kidneys in any significant way. > I don't have any evidence to the contrary... Nor, apparently, are you able to account for the half-century of experience we have in using PTFE inside people's bodies. Nor as well the material's track record in a huge variety of other applications. E.g., nearly every household in the first world has used PTFE-coated non-stick cookware. The fact that we have no evidence of PTFE somehow entering people's bloodstream and "diluting" their blood might clue you in to the plausibility of your theory. Or maybe not. > ...but I am skeptical of how conclusive the supporting evidence is and would place the onus on proving harmlessness rather than harmfulness. You can say that about anything. Literally anything. Honestly, I know you think you're discussing a complex topic with some sort of clever reasoning, but it's only because you're missing a lot of basic knowledge of chemistry and physiology. I think I need to be done with this now.
sjg007 7y ago
>However, if you heat that nonstick pan above 600 deg F, the decomposition products can easily injure you, and sometimes worse. If you have birds the fumes will kill them. It's that whole canary in the coal mine.
hnick 7y ago
Adam Ragusea on YouTube (can't link sorry, restricted browsing) had a short video covering this as he reviewed the cases and research from experts. In the end the worst known case was basically a guy who fell asleep and the entire coating of his pan burned off, filling his house with smoke. He had respiratory symptoms and was hospitalised but walked out (I think) less than 48 hours later with no obvious lasting effects. I think the post you are replying to though was angling that it would cause a sustained inflammation response as your immune system is detecting and gearing up to fight a particle it cannot deal with. I have no idea if that's true though.
james_s_tayler 7y ago
>You can scrape the non-stick coating off of all your pans and eat it This almost sounds like a dare. Maybe it could even be the new Tide Pods thing.

munk-a 7y ago

Just to clarify, if a large quantity of PTFE particles was introduced into your blood stream are you stating that wouldn't deprive your cells of oxygen? I think you're making some health related claims and assumptions that may be correct in limited circumstances but haven't been sufficiently studied to come to a good conclusion on.

nate_meurer 7y ago
Umm... yes? Why would PTFE "deprive cells of oxygen"? What cells? What size particles? Do you think they'd block your arteries or something? Why would that be any different than any other material? And how exactly would such particles get into your body? By injection? PTFE is chemically and biologically inert. It's well studied, and has enjoyed extensive medical use inside peoples' bodies for over half a century. I'm aware of no evidence that PTFE in your body is harmful in any form or quantity that is known to actually occur in humans. If you have any evidence to the contrary, I'd love to hear it.
- munk-a 7y ago
  The process to ensure your cells get enough oxygen is a complex one. When you're exercising heavily certain chemical signals are sent out to ask the heart to increase blood flow to compensate for the high consumption of oxygen - similarly injuries produce stressor signals when the body is damaged and bleeding (since the lowered blood pressure decreases the efficiency of the heart's ability to deliver oxygen) - if an inert chemical was introduced into the blood stream slowly it'd gradually reduce the amount of oxygen carried in blood as it flows through your body by decreasing the proportion of red blood cells per volume, to compensate maybe your heart needs to beat a bit quicker deliver the same amount of oxygen via blood. Keeping your blood clean of impurities is traditionally (mostly) handled by the kidneys, if some PTFE is introduced into the blood stream does PTFE recognize this impurity as a dilution - will it properly filter it out? How efficient is that filtering and how much will it stress your kidneys? Basically, bodies are complex objects - this is what studies are for and long term effects can take time to be detected. I don't have any evidence to the contrary, but I am skeptical of how conclusive the supporting evidence is and would place the onus on proving harmlessness rather than harmfulness.
  - nate_meurer 7y ago
    You've invented a new medical hazard, which makes no sense whatsoever. If you were to somehow introduce enough solid matter into your blood that it lowers your RBC count on a volumetric basis, then you'd have far bigger problems than oxygen transport in general. And at that point, it wouldn't matter what the material is. And you still haven't answered the question: how do you imagine such a large amount of powdered PTFE would get into your body? PTFE can't be digested, and there's no evidence that it's passed to the blood stream though inhalation. Are you really afraid that someone's going to inject you with a specially formulated suspension of ultra-fine PTFE? The rest of your post is a bunch of mumbo jumbo. > injuries produce stressor signals when the body is damaged and bleeding (since the lowered blood pressure decreases the efficiency of the heart's ability to deliver oxygen) Not sure what "signals" you think you're talking about, but our compensation for traumatic hypovolemia is triggered by vascular baroreceptors, a mechanism has nothing to do with the effect of foreign particles in our blood. > Keeping your blood clean of impurities is traditionally (mostly) handled by the kidneys, if some PTFE is introduced into the blood stream does PTFE recognize this impurity as a dilution - will it properly filter it out? No, the kidneys do not filter out solids. That's not how they work. Your body has ways to deal with foreign particles, which vary widely depending on the nature of the material -- particle size and shape, reactivity, opsonizability, etc. None of these ways involve the kidneys in any significant way. > I don't have any evidence to the contrary... Nor, apparently, are you able to account for the half-century of experience we have in using PTFE inside people's bodies. Nor as well the material's track record in a huge variety of other applications. E.g., nearly every household in the first world has used PTFE-coated non-stick cookware. The fact that we have no evidence of PTFE somehow entering people's bloodstream and "diluting" their blood might clue you in to the plausibility of your theory. Or maybe not. > ...but I am skeptical of how conclusive the supporting evidence is and would place the onus on proving harmlessness rather than harmfulness. You can say that about anything. Literally anything. Honestly, I know you think you're discussing a complex topic with some sort of clever reasoning, but it's only because you're missing a lot of basic knowledge of chemistry and physiology. I think I need to be done with this now.

sjg007 7y ago

>However, if you heat that nonstick pan above 600 deg F, the decomposition products can easily injure you, and sometimes worse. If you have birds the fumes will kill them. It's that whole canary in the coal mine.

hnick 7y ago

Adam Ragusea on YouTube (can't link sorry, restricted browsing) had a short video covering this as he reviewed the cases and research from experts. In the end the worst known case was basically a guy who fell asleep and the entire coating of his pan burned off, filling his house with smoke. He had respiratory symptoms and was hospitalised but walked out (I think) less than 48 hours later with no obvious lasting effects. I think the post you are replying to though was angling that it would cause a sustained inflammation response as your immune system is detecting and gearing up to fight a particle it cannot deal with. I have no idea if that's true though.

james_s_tayler 7y ago

>You can scrape the non-stick coating off of all your pans and eat it This almost sounds like a dare. Maybe it could even be the new Tide Pods thing.