How to lower the PFAS levels in your body

Why PFAS stay in your body so long

Your body doesn’t break down many of the PFAS that linger in your blood. Instead, bile carries them into the gut, where they can be absorbed back into the bloodstream. The process repeats, helping explain why compounds such as PFOS and PFHxS remain in the body for years. For some PFAS, it can take several years for blood levels to fall by half.

Approaches with evidence in people

1. Prescription medication

Bile acid sequestrants are prescription medications that have been used to treat high cholesterol for decades. They work inside the gut rather than entering the bloodstream. By binding substances there, they can interrupt the recycling of certain PFAS, allowing more of those chemicals to leave the body in stool.

This effect is not based on just one study. Researchers in the US, Denmark, Australia, and Sweden have published findings showing faster PFAS clearance with bile acid sequestrants. In a 2025 clinical trial involving adults from a PFAS-contaminated community, blood PFAS fell about 2 to 20 times faster during treatment than without it, depending on the compound. See The Science for the broader research.

In a 2025 clinical trial, blood PFAS fell 2 to 20 times faster during treatment than without it.

These findings have opened a new path for people who want to do more than limit future exposure. With a physician-guided approach, it is possible to measure PFAS levels, pursue a reduction strategy, and retest to see what changed.

2. Blood or plasma donation

Blood and plasma donation have also been studied. In a 2022 randomized trial of Australian firefighters published in JAMA Network Open, both approaches lowered PFAS levels over one year. Plasma donation produced a larger reduction than blood donation, likely because PFAS bind to proteins in plasma.

Donation may be worth considering for eligible people, although the reductions occur gradually and not everyone can donate. It is a different approach from prescription treatment, and the study does not establish that lower PFAS levels prevent disease.

3. Stopping new exposure

Reducing new exposure matters, too. If your drinking water contains PFAS, a properly certified activated-carbon or reverse-osmosis filter can reduce what you consume. If you use a private well, testing your water is a useful first step.

But filtering water and lowering the PFAS already in your blood are two different things. A filter addresses what is coming in; it does not clear what has already accumulated.

What hasn’t been shown to work

There is no convincing human evidence that the following approaches meaningfully lower PFAS in blood:

• Saunas and “sweat detox” programs. Sweating is not an established method for clearing meaningful amounts of PFAS.
• Activated charcoal cleanses. These are not the same as prescription bile acid sequestrants and have not demonstrated comparable results.
• Supplement stacks marketed as forever-chemical detoxes. Marketing claims are not a substitute for human clinical evidence.

That distinction matters. Tare focuses on measurable results and approaches supported by published research in people, not detox marketing.

What lower levels mean for your health

Lowering PFAS in blood is measurable. Whether doing so reduces the risk of specific diseases has not yet been established in clinical trials. The evidence does show that PFAS levels can change, and that is a meaningful starting point.

For anyone ready to act, the next step is to understand their levels and discuss a reduction plan with a physician familiar with PFAS. If you already have recent blood results, you may be able to move directly to that conversation. Our guide to what to do after a high PFAS result explains how to interpret your number and follow up.