Association between per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals and adult overweight, obesity and gestational weight gain: A scoping review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
AIMS: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent environmental pollutants that may be associated with weight gain. This scoping review synthesizes current evidence on the relationship between PFAS exposure levels and obesity outcomes in adult populations. METHODS: The databases Medline, EMBASE, Global Health, CAB Abstracts and Scopus were used to identify articles related to PFAS and adult obesity published in English between 2009 and 2024. Articles were screened by two independent reviewers. We summarized the study characteristics and direction and magnitude of associations between PFAS and obesity metrics. RESULTS: In total, 1423 articles were identified, with 546 remaining after removing duplicates and citation searching. After screening for inclusion criteria, 55 were included for a full-text review, and 28 were ultimately included in this study. Most studies examined the following PFAS: PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, PFDA, EtFOSAA and MeFOSAA. Obesity-related outcomes included BMI, body fat percentage, and gestational weight gain. Seven studies focused on pregnant women, and 21 on a non-pregnant adult population. Among the pregnant women populations, associations were mixed for PFOA (28.6 % positive, 14.3 % negative, 57.1 % null) and PFOS (42.9 % positive, 57.1 % null). Among the non-pregnant adult populations, associations were mixed for PFOA (40 % positive, 15 % negative, 45 % null), PFOS (26.3 % positive, 10.5 % negative, 63.2 % null), and PFNA (44.4 % positive, 16.7 % negative, 38.9 % null). Associations between other types of PFAS and obesity-related outcomes were more consistently null. CONCLUSION: The evidence regarding the association between PFAS and obesity in adults is inconsistent. Associations vary based on the type of PFAS, timing of exposure, and obesity metric examined. Further research is needed to fully elucidate the relationship between PFAS and obesity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.029 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.014 | 0.013 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".