By Dickson Omobola
Nigerian researcher, Uche Arunsi, has raised concerns about environmental safety and public health, stating that a widely used industrial chemical is responsible for hormone-sensitive cancers.
Arunsi, a PhD candidate at Georgia Institute of Technology, disclosed this in a new finding in which he examined the effects of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, commonly known as PFOS, on cancer development.
According to him, the chemical belongs to a group often referred to as “forever chemicals” due to their persistence in the environment and the human body.
The research, published in the journal Cancers MDPI, revealed that PFOS may play a significant role in the development of hormone-sensitive cancers such as prostate, breast, and ovarian cancer.
Arunsi stated that PFOS was long believed to be chemically inactive and safe for use in products such as non-stick cookware and firefighting foams. However, his findings challenge this assumption, describing the compound as a “hidden threat” with the potential to disrupt critical biological processes.
He said: “Our study provides sobering evidence that PFOS interferes with hormonal signalling, which is central to tumour growth and progression.”
The study showed that PFOS disrupts steroid hormone production, leading to imbalances in estrogen, progesterone, and androgen levels in the body. These hormonal disruptions, the researcher noted, create conditions that may encourage cancer development.
Highlighting specific health risks, Arunsi explained that PFOS exposure has been linked to reduced levels of Anti-Müllerian Hormone, a key indicator of ovarian health. “This suggests a potential acceleration of reproductive ageing in women,” he said.
He further noted that in men, PFOS interferes with androgen receptor signalling, a major driver of prostate cancer progression. “We also observed that the chemical induces oxidative stress, inflammation, and epigenetic changes, all of which contribute to tumour formation,” he added.
Arunsi expressed concern about the implications of these findings for African countries, where data on chemical exposure remains limited. “Hormone-sensitive cancers already account for a significant share of cancer-related deaths. Unregulated exposure to PFOS introduces a preventable risk factor,” he warned.
The researcher called for urgent regulatory reforms across the continent, including the monitoring of PFOS levels in water and food, the gradual phase-out of PFOS-containing products, and increased public awareness of exposure risks.
He also advocated greater investment in local research to better understand the relationship between PFOS exposure and cancer incidence in African populations. “Africa must take proactive steps to protect its population and ensure environmental safety,” Arunsi said.
Currently, Arunsi is advancing this line of inquiry through combinatorial chemistry, designing next generation therapeutics for some of the most treatment resistant solid tumors, including castration resistant prostate cancer, triple negative breast cancer, non small cell lung cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma. He believes that defeating cancer requires a radical shift in drug innovation. “Cancer behaves like a biological pest,” he noted. “To eliminate it, we must engineer therapeutic ‘super tools’; highly selective, genome compatible molecules capable of outsmarting the disease at every stage.” This forward-looking vision, he said, is essential for building a future in which environmental safety, precision medicine and public health work together to reduce the global cancer burden.
The post ‘Industrial chemical may trigger hormone-sensitive cancers’ appeared first on Vanguard News.