For many, beer is more than just a drink—it’s part of social culture, celebrations, and downtime rituals. But new research suggests there may be something more unsettling hiding in your pint glass, toxic “forever chemicals.” A recent study published in ACS Environmental Science & Technology has revealed that over 95 percent of beers tested across the United States and abroad contain traces of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

PFAS are a large family of manmade chemicals developed in the mid-20th century for their resistance to water, oil, heat, and stains. They’re found in non-stick cookware, water-resistant clothing, food packaging, firefighting foams, and even cosmetics. Their industrial versatility, however, comes at a steep cost: PFAS do not naturally break down, earning them the nickname “forever chemicals.”

Mounting evidence links PFAS exposure to health problems, including hormonal disruption, weakened immunity, high cholesterol, liver damage, fertility challenges, and increased risks of certain cancers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently set strict new limits on PFAS in drinking water, underscoring the urgency of the problem.

How Did PFAS End Up in Beer?

Beer is made primarily of water, and researchers suspected that if municipal water supplies were contaminated with PFAS, those chemicals might carry over into the brewing process. That’s exactly what this new study confirmed.

The research team, led by Jennifer Hoponick Redmon, adapted an EPA-approved method normally used for testing drinking water and applied it to beer. They examined 23 beers from across the U.S. including those brewed in North Carolina, Michigan, Colorado, California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Missouri as well as beers imported from Mexico and the Netherlands.

The findings were striking: PFAS were present in 95 percent of samples, with contamination levels strongly correlating to the quality of local water supplies. Beers brewed near the Cape Fear River Basin in North Carolina, a region notorious for PFAS pollution, contained the highest concentrations and the widest mix of chemicals.

Why This Study Say About Forever Chemicals In Beer?

This is the first study to directly link municipal water contamination to PFAS levels in U.S. retail beer. While breweries often use filtration systems, these methods are not designed to capture PFAS. As a result, the contamination that begins in local rivers and reservoirs can persist all the way into the finished product.

The results highlight an uncomfortable reality: PFAS contamination doesn’t just stay in the water—it spreads into food and beverages consumed daily. Beer is only the latest product to show evidence of contamination, joining an already long list that includes bottled water, fish, dairy, and vegetables.

“As an occasional beer drinker myself, I wondered whether PFAS in water supplies was making its way into our pints,” said Redmon in a statement. “I hope these findings inspire water treatment strategies and policies that help reduce the likelihood of PFAS in future pours.”

Her comments echo a growing consensus among environmental health experts that solving PFAS contamination requires systemic change. Since individual breweries can do little to alter the chemical composition of municipal water, solutions must come from upgrading public water systems and enforcing stricter industrial discharge regulations.

What Are The Health Risks Beyond the Glass?

For consumers, the immediate concern is how much PFAS exposure from beer actually contributes to long-term health risks. The EPA’s new standards set the safe threshold for certain PFAS, including perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), at near-zero levels in drinking water. While the amounts found in beer are relatively small per serving, scientists warn that cumulative exposure across multiple sources—water, food, packaging, and now beer—poses a real risk over time.

The issue extends far beyond breweries. PFAS contamination has been detected in rivers, groundwater, and public water systems across the United States and around the globe. A seven-fold increase in Google searches for “PFAS” in the past five years reflects rising public concern as awareness grows.

Everyday products contribute to the exposure cycle: waterproof clothing, stain-resistant upholstery, non-stick pans, and even cosmetics like waterproof mascaras can shed PFAS into the environment. Once in the ecosystem, they seep into soil, water, and eventually our bodies.

For casual drinkers, a pint of beer is unlikely to be the sole driver of PFAS-related health risks. However, the study reinforces a broader message: PFAS are everywhere, and beer is another reminder of how pervasive they’ve become. Health experts emphasize that reducing exposure across all possible sources is key, since the chemicals accumulate in the body over time.

As Dr. Redmon’s team points out, the solution doesn’t lie in avoiding beer altogether—it lies in addressing the root of the problem: contaminated water systems and unchecked chemical pollution.

When it comes to eating, it is very easy to overdo it and cause problems for your health. Eating too much food is not just about gaining weight, but it can cause lot of issues for your metabolism as well as cause harmful reactions. According to the MD Anderson Cancer Center, overeating can cause a reaction known as heartburn, where the acid that breaks down your food gets pushed up towards your esophagus. Other problems that may arise could be bloating, organ strain, abdominal discomfort, etc.

All of these issues could be avoided if one controls one's eating habits. However, can you change the way you eat and train your body to avoid overeating? According to Dr Sudhir Kumar, Hyderabad-based neurologist, you can.

10 Habits That Can Help You Avoid Overeating

In a recent post on social media platform X, Dr Sudhir listed 10 ways one can teach one's body to avoid overeating and protecting their metabolism.

Tweak Your Eating Space

You can trick your brain into eating less by changing your environment. Try using smaller plates and bowls—it makes smaller portions look more satisfying. Keep food out of sight; if you don't see it, you won't think about snacking impulsively. Also, keep serving dishes in the kitchen, not on the dinner table, to make it harder to grab second helpings.

Slow Down How You Eat

Give your brain time to catch up with your stomach. Eat slowly and chew your food well. Make a point of putting your fork or spoon down between bites. It takes your brain about 15 to 20 minutes to register that you're full, so slowing down gives this "fullness signal" time to register, helping you eat less overall.

Handle Social Eating Smartly

When you're eating with friends or family, you tend to eat more because meals last longer. To manage this, serve yourself a fixed portion before you sit down. Then, focus on the conversation instead of reaching for more food. If you stay at the table for a long time, sip on water instead of continuing to eat.

Build Your Meal Strategically

Eat your food in a specific order to help manage your blood sugar and keep you feeling full longer. Start with vegetables or salad, then move to protein, and finish with carbohydrates. This order prevents rapid sugar spikes and avoids the quick hunger that comes after eating simple carbs like bread or sweets first.

Prioritize Filling Foods

Make sure every meal includes a source of protein like eggs, pulses, yogurt, or fish, and fibre from vegetables, whole grains, and fruits. Both protein and fibre are excellent at increasing the feeling of fullness, which naturally cuts down your total calorie intake. Try to limit high-calorie, non-filling items like refined carbs and processed snacks.

Don't Ignore Sleep and Stress

Poor sleep and high stress directly affect your hunger. Aim for 7–8 hours of sleep nightly, because lack of sleep increases the hormone that makes you hungry, called ghrelin, and lowers the hormone that tells you that you're full which is called leptin. Manage stress with things like walking, deep breathing, or meditation. Chronic stress often leads to emotional eating and intense cravings.

Move Your Body More

Moving doesn't just mean a full workout. Take a short walk (10–15 minutes) after meals; this is a great way to stabilize your blood sugar and help digestion. Avoid sitting still for hours; taking short standing breaks and small movements throughout the day actually improves how your body uses insulin.

Use Water to Your Advantage

Drinking water can subtly help you eat less. Drink a glass of water before meals; this can modestly reduce how much food you eat. Always avoid sugary drinks and juices, as they add lots of calories without making you feel full.

Focus Only on Eating

Sit down and eat without screens, no TV, phone, or laptop. This helps you pay attention to your body's signals of hunger and fullness. Before and after you eat, quickly rate your hunger on a scale where 1 is starving, and 10 is painfully full. Aim to stop when you feel comfortably satisfied which is around a 7.

Plan Your Portions

Don't eat snacks straight out of a large bag; pre-portion them into small containers. Use smaller utensils, like a teaspoon for desserts, to naturally slow down your eating speed. Finally, don't skip meals! Getting extremely hungry almost always causes you to overeat later in the day.

The debate between what is more important or the driving factor behind the rising cases of obesity may be solved now. Thanks to the new research led by over 50 institutions across 19 countries that revealed it is diet, or in simpler words, the calorie consumption and not the lack of physical activity that is a dominant factor driving obesity.

The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The study is more so important because it challenges the belief that sedentary lifestyle is the primary cause of driving the obesity rates high.

What Did The Study Find?

The study found that higher calorie intake actually plays a much larger role in obesity than reduced physical activity. Despite decades of research into the causes of the obesity crisis, the relative importance of diet versus physical activity has remained uncertain,” said Herman Pontzer, professor of evolutionary anthropology and global health at Duke University, and one of the study’s authors. “The IAEA’s Doubly Labelled Water Database has allowed us to finally test these ideas on a global scale and bring clarity to this major public health challenge.”

What Is IAEA? Why Does It Matter?

IAEA stands for the International Atomic Energy Agency. The research recently published used IAEA's Doubly Labelled Water (DLW) Database, which is one of the world's largest collections of energy expenditure data. The dataset was able to provide the researchers a look into the balance between energy intake and energy output across the populations and economies.

Is Global Obesity On The Rise?

In 2022, nearly 1 in 8 people worldwide were living with obesity. This is a number that has doubled more in adults and quadrupled among adolescents in the past three decades. Obesity also increases risk of many chronic illnesses and diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and also certain cancers.

While industrialized societies see soaring obesity rates, traditional and farming communities experience much lower levels of obesity, a contrast often attributed to more physically demanding lifestyles.

This is where this recent study plays a big role. The study found that this assumption does not fully hold true. Even though physical activity across population, or the energy expenditure, that is the total calories burned daily is not significantly lower in industrialized population, their body size is larger. So, if not the energy output, then what is the reason? The answer lies in the diet.

How Was The Study Conducted?

The researchers analyzed data from 4,213 adults aged 18 to 60, representing 34 populations across six continents. Participants included hunter-gatherers, farmers, and urban dwellers. Using the DLW technique, the researchers measured total energy expenditure (TEE), basal energy expenditure (BEE), and active energy expenditure (AEE).

Although people in industrialized nations had higher total energy expenditures due to their larger body sizes, their activity levels, when adjusted for body size, were only slightly lower than those in traditional societies. This slight difference explained less than 10% of the overall increase in body mass index (BMI) and fat percentage. The main driver was higher calorie intake, often from ultra-processed, high-fat, and high-sugar foods.

Findings: Diet Matters More

“For public health professionals, these findings emphasize that improving diet quality, and reducing consumption of high-calorie, ultra-processed foods, may be far more effective than focusing solely on physical activity,” explained Cornelia Loechl, Head of Nutritional and Health-related Environmental Studies at the IAEA. “It underscores how impactful scientific data can guide better health policies.”

Thomas M. Holland, a physician-scientist at RUSH University in Chicago, who was not involved in the study, added: “This research reminds us that while exercise remains essential for overall health, obesity appears to be more closely tied to what and how much we eat. Economic development offers access to more food, but also increases exposure to obesogenic diets.”

Robert F Kennedy Jr., the health and human services (HHS) secretary has now planned to issue guidance to encourage Americans to eat more saturated fats. This guidance, if issued, would contradict the decades of dietary recommendations and alarming experts. This has had mixed views from those in the healthcare sector.

Cheryl Anderson, an American Heart Association board member and professor at the University of California, San Diego's school of public health and human longevity science told the Guardian, "My response and sort of counsel to myself was to stay calm, and let’s see what happens, because there was no indication given as to how, why, when this potential shift would occur."

Anderson also added, “The recommendation around saturated fat has been one of the most consistent recommendations since the first edition of the dietary guidelines.”

However, Ronald Krauss, who is a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of California, San Francisco has researched saturated fats. He found that saturated fats in fact, could be less harmful than previously thought. To this upcoming planned guidelines, he says, "If [Kennedy} is actually going to go out and say we should be eating more saturated fat, I think that's really the wrong message."

What Does The New Research On Saturated Fats Show?

Krauss's research shows that "saturated fat is relatively neutral" as compared to what scientists had believed earlier. Kennedy too has indicated that in the new guidelines, more stress will be placed to "eat saturated fats of dairy, good meat, of fresh meat and vegetables". The Hill reports that Kennedy said, "When we release those [guidelines], it will give everybody the rationale for driving it into our schools."

As per Krauss's studies, reducing saturated fat intake is only helpful when you replace it with the right things. For instance, replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats like olive oil and "polyunsaturated fats from other plant sources can really improve metabolic health and reduce heart disease risk, but that’s not saying that saturated fat is necessarily harmful".

His research also focused that replacing saturated fats with sugar and carbohydrates then could increase risk of heart diseases.

Krauss noted that setting strict cutoff points for saturated fat intake, such as the current 10% limit, can often feel arbitrary.

Anderson, however, pointed out that regardless of the exact threshold, data clearly show a pattern: higher saturated fat consumption in a population correlates with increased cholesterol levels and greater cardiovascular disease risk.

While she agrees with Krauss that what replaces saturated fat in the diet is important, Anderson disagrees that saturated fat itself is “neutral.”

“In the current American diet, there’s simply too much saturated fat, and it’s not having a neutral impact on public health,” she said.

Despite differing views, both Anderson and Krauss agree that future nutritional guidelines should focus less on single nutrients like saturated fat and more on overall dietary patterns. Anderson's explanation is that people do not eat nutrients, they eat foods. "When you ask someone what they had to eat, they don't tell you: 'I had fat, or I had carbohydrate, or I had protein."

This is why, as per Anderson, focusing on food is more important and less confusing than focusing on the nutrients.