>In diseased tissue samples of people with chronic illnesses (IBD [6], Dementia [7], heart disease [8]), microplastic prevalence is significantly higher than healthy tissue.
this is very much not the same thing as "microplastics cause chronic illness", even though it's worded in a way that clearly wants to make you think that.
The precautionary principle is bad epistemology and shouldn’t be used to argue in opposition to anything. If we’re considering actions to ban or reduce microplastics it should be backed by a reasoned explanation for why we should do so.
And where does it point toward? Other some untenable position such as "ban all plastics", which may very well produce more harm?
The discourse around microplastics is pretty wild. The sport is finding them in random places, often at parts-per-billion or parts-per-trillion levels that we don't really use to look for most other substances. And the implication is essentially "progress bad" or "consumerism bad". No clear evidence of human harm, no realistic policy prescriptions - so what do we expect to happen, exactly? This it not a case of corporate greed or deception.
Our bodies also contain a fair amount of sand. Probably at levels higher than parts-per-billion. Is it bad? Sometimes! Where does the precautionary principle lead us on that?
Make the plastic manufacturers own the external costs by requiring they fund proper disposal sites/messaging, if only to start making up for all the bullshit propaganda about recycling that's greatly exacerbated the problem.
> Make the plastic manufacturers own the external costs by requiring they fund proper disposal sites/messaging,
I think you fail to understand the reality of the problem.
In western countries, plastic "trash" is not really the problem. It's highly visible and it would always be nice to reduce it of course.
The majority of uncontained environmental microplastics comes from vehicle tires and clothing/textiles. Clothing and other textiles (e.g., carpets) being the biggest source, more than 1/3rd. After that it's probably building materials, paints, machinery and factory parts, etc.
Disposal sites and messaging will not do anything. You can be a perfectly compliant goodly consumer who dutifully puts their old clothes in the trash and pays the disposal fees for their old tires or rides busses. You'd still be contributing enormously to environmental microplastic load.
All natural fiber clothes, cycle everywhere, don't wear sneakers or other kind of plastic or synthetic rubber shoes, don't have synthetic carpets or drapes, don't paint your house, etc... now you're starting to get somewhere.
But the machinery required for you to stay alive, moving goods and services around, pumping your water, people going to work to keep your electricity on, package your food, etc... all still pumping out microplastics.
Disposal and messaging just won't cut it. And without a bunch of astounding and vanishingly unlikely breakthroughs, getting rid of microplastics from the top 4-5 sources will make net zero CO2 look like a walk in the park. Therefore we have to accept microplastics at enormous scale and work with that. Not to say we shouldn't attempt to reduce it where possible of course we should, but it won't be reduced to insignificant. So I think what needs to be done is well funded research into the effects of existing and new types of plastics, and into new materials and techniques for cleanup or containment. That way we have a chance to discover and limit or ban the worst of the worst before they can become too pervasive.
As far as reduction goes, possibly some small incentives to avoid plastics in consumer items (clothes, carpets, etc) might help. The messaging really can not be the same idiotic and counterproductive alarmism and blame and guilt campaigns led by wealthy private jet and mega yacht owning billionaires of the climate change debacle. Just gently make people aware they could look for natural fiber clothes, perhaps modest and commensurate added costs on plastics manufacturers to fund this research and containment, etc.
Why not start with the large sources that you can personally control?
> One 2023 study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology found that microwaving plastic food containers releases more than 2 billion nanoplastics (smaller microplastics) and 4 million microplastics for every square centimeter of the container.
"Ban all plastics" is a strawman that will not happen and no mainstream opinion is suggesting. But there is a wide spectrum of possibilities between "ban all plastics" and "do nothing".
A principal concern is ingestion of microplastics via food packaging, utensils, cookware, etc. There are non-plastic substitutions available for many of these items, and a precautionary approach would be to regulate to require them, where it is economically feasible, until such time as the effects of microplastic ingestion are better understood.
I don't think there's any more room for not considering underestimating the importance of beginning to start the process-of mulling over the conceptualisation of starting to worry.
It's saying that there could be a link and a link has been found on mice. That and the fact that the human body is not supposed to be running partially on plastic should trigger some actions.
Exactly the same argument could be (and unfortunately, has been) made about vaccines. For all we know, microplastics could be making us healthier. I don't believe that's true, and I'm avoiding plastic where I can, but the fact that we have it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.
Not really. With vaccines you can have controlled groups (vaccinated or not) and study the benefits versus risks. This is done before any vaccine is introduced to the public, any vaccine showing not enough benefits versus risks is discarded.
We do not have this luxuary with plastic. Controlled groups are not possible, asking that risks inherent to micro-plastics in human body are proven is therefore impossible.
To compare back to vaccines, it would be like vaccinating very single human, with a vaccine which is not tested and which purpose is unknown. Then asking someone to scientifically prove that this vaccine causes health problems as a condition to stop systematically vaccinating every single human.
it took me a minute to parse that sentence also. They are saying that health tissue makes up < 100% of the body, but that microplastics can be found in a full 100% of the body (healthy and non-healthy). Therefore microplastic prevalence > healthy tissue. It's saying that there is no part of the body that isn't impacted
I think it's saying there's more microplastics in unhealthy than healthy tissue is all, your interpretation is technically possible but phrasing it that way would be so misleading as to basically be lying.
The reason more microplastics in unhealthy tissue doesn't necessarily mean microplastics cause unhealthy tissue is that unhealthy tissue would be worse at removing substances irrespective of whether the substances cause the harm.
We’ve seen it with lead, asbestos, and PFAS — decades of denial, then belated regulation, then generations living with the consequences. The only difference is timing —and whether you wait for policy to catch up or act on what the science already shows. Think it’s time to push for more studies on the health consequences of microplastics
Any thoughts on the temperature of plastics? Looks like a takeout container at 95C (soup, for example) can release 50% more particles than at 50C [1], but how much of overall ingestion comes from this source? Several friends of mine avoid takeout for this reason, is that rational?
I've been having a good time chatting with Deep Research LLMs about this. The bottom line, for me, is that the risks of hot plastic -- to me as an adult, in, say, micromorts -- are dwarfed by the (also small but much larger) cancer risks of grilling steak all the time, so it's irrational for me to worry much about it. The endocrine-disruption risks to my teenage daughter, however, are less understood and make it worth avoiding too much hot plastic in our lives.
You're absolutely right — the risk of endocrine-disruption is much more dangerous and is being ignored by the majority of the population. What an insightful take!
Would you like me to expand on the reasons endocrine-disruptions are the bigger risk? Or would you like me to explore other ways in which microplastics might be dangerous to your health?
Rrrrgh. Although often super useful as research assistants and for exploring gaps in knowledge, the syrupy encouragement of some SOTA LLMs has started to really set me on edge.
I have often wondered why the government doesn't do anything about this. Is the science not clear enough yet?
Quick search shows that we knew about lead hazards as early as the 1920s/1930s, but it took until the 1970s to get regulation about lead paint and gas - hoping we don't repeat that in this case
"Your" behavior??? The second you try to put this on individuals, you lose the plot and it turns into another "personal carbon footprint" scam like what BP pulled in 2004[1]. The only way out of this is public policy and international cooperation.
I don't know what the most common sources of microplastic particles are, but the messaging needs to be such that people know we aren't getting rid of all plastics, just the stupid ones that are most responsible for potentially harming us. I think straws were banned because there was a video of a plastic straw stuck in sea turtle's nose, not because they're one of the top sources.
In micro and nano scale things can behave differently so it is quite hard to decide what to ban.
Plastic straws and caps attached to bottles - reason was that there are too many of them and people don’t behave properly and don't throw things in the trash and throw them on the ground where they are eaten by animals. At some British beach they counted >100 caps per 100 m (or something similar, it was a surprising number).
If historically worries that arose in mouse studies replicated with high reliability in humans, we would not wait for the results of human trials to apply what we learned for mice to humans on anything of importance.
It's not that we want to do humans trials. We do it because, apparently, it has been observed that it's unreasonable not to do it before applying something we observed in mice to humans.
How well does the link need to be proven before we act?
The fact that we haven't found the causal link yet is not proof that there isn't one. And a whole lot of correlation suggests that there is. Why should we not take this as yet another reason to regulate throwaway plastic?
For what it’s worth, you don’t need a randomized controlled trial if you can offer an explanation for how microplastics affect human health.
Hence the classic joke “As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data.”
It's a bit too much of an umbrella term for regulation to fix in one swoop, but if i were alive in the 50s and had the internet i simply would not buy lead-paint.
> if i were alive in the 50s and had the internet i simply would not buy lead-paint
The contamination is so widespread and is in things you can't avoid (like the air) but I have made some lifestyle changes that I hope decrease my exposure at least a little bit. I:
- don't drink water out of plastic bottles
- don't use any plastic dishes at home
- switched from using tupperware for food storage to mason jars
- use bedding made from natural materials (mostly cotton)
- prefer clothing made from cotton as opposed to polyester (exception: some exercise clothing)
- don't eat meat (this was not because of concern about plastic, but I think it's helpful here too)
My family mocks me for this, but I also hold my breath when I clean the lint filter in the dryer, because that cloud of dust that shoots up is, I believe anyway, a whole pile of breathable microplastics.
not always an option and to some this entire concern could be considered a luxury.
Who are you trying to communicate this issue to and what solutions are there that they’d find reasonable until governments address it? If it’s simply “don’t buy plastic” then I understand that I’m out of bounds. Perhaps along with many others.
Animal studies seem like the best tool for untangling this, and they indicate that high plastic doses cause a variety of health effects, some of which seem to align with broad health trends we see in our population over time, like in fertility.
It's not like there's zero data to inform the risk calculation.
Yes but in those situations, you typically can at best find associations between variables and outcomes. We really want evidence of causality, although it sort of depends on how you interpret the precautionary principle.
The science is very clear on microplastics existing and being in our bodies.
The science linking that to specific outcomes/harm is almost non existent from what I understand.
Edit: to those downvoting - I'm not downplaying anything here, I agree they're concerning and we should be worried - just stating the fact that as far as I know the research on outcomes is very inconclusive at this point.
If the current US government started doing anything about it right now, i would immediately regard it as 100% horseshit. America won't be in any position to lead ... anything scientific, medical or even thoughtful for a generation or two, at least.
I know there are still people hanging on in their fields trying to do the right things, but the bullshit engine in DC is so strong now that nothing is believable. If you are working in scientific research in America today, your only career goal needs to be emigration.
All microplastics out in the open will degrade to nanoplastics at some point, and those find it much easier to infiltrate the human body. They penetrate the blood-brain barrier.
This leads me to believe that it's literally impossible to avoid. The air/water supply must be getting more poluted by the minute with these things
Many of these microplastic studies [1-9] rely on small sample sizes (e.g., n=10 for brain tissue) and detection methods that could pick up contamination from lab equipment itself. It reminds me of when everyone was afraid of BPA
And what defines a “microplastic”? There’s so many different types of plastics that all have different effects on the body
What’s really the health trade-off compared to having to monitor every tiny little thing
>And what defines a “microplastic”? There’s so many different types of plastics that all have different effects on the body
It's not that hard to constrain it to synthetic organic polymers (aka plastics) that are small enough (smaller than 5.0 mm).
Even if there are some exceptions also considered plastics, this already covers 99% of the ones to worry about.
And the effects we worry about are from the presense of millions of hard synthetic micromaterials like that in the bloodstream, organs, and even the brain.
That's enough of a concern for the whole class, before we start to care about them "all having different effects on the body" (which is barely a given).
There are no "millions" of 5mm plastic pieces in your bloodstream. That's about a rice grain. If there would be even a single one between 5mm and 1mm it would cause an almost immediate obstruction.
What part of "smaller than" was difficult to parse?
Microplastics can be defined as < 5mm (e.g. EPA uses that definition), doesn't mean the larger ones are in the bloodstream, or even less so, the brain.
But such "sizable" ones in the environment can and are be broken down, digested, shed smaller micro- and nanoplastics by the loads, and so on.
Do you happen to know whether the worry is about the inertness of microplastics, and hence the physical damage of the particles. Or is it in the plastics being chemically interactive with tissue?
Both cases are considered harmful, the surer and heavier more general case being for the former.
The inertness alone means boost in inflamattion, damaged cells, etc. Just consider that asbestos is biologically/chemically inert too - the issues come from inflammation, scarring, dna damage, etc.
But (and varying per microplastic case on lots of factors: composition, dyes used, etc), the chemical interaction can also play a role.
> What’s really the health trade-off compared to having to monitor every tiny little thing
I'd say that there's sure a health benefit for continuing studies on microplastics. Even if they're difficult to conduct, it's probably a good idea to learn more aboht microplastics and health because, barring some new way to remove microplastics, it seems likely that the ambient concentration of them will only increase in the future.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I think microplastics, and the chemicals that leach from them, plasticizers, are incredibly serious issues. In fact, my company, NeutraOat (neutraoat.com), is creating a modified oat fiber supplement to trap plasticizers in the gut and remove them from the bloodstream.
On the other hand, as other commenters mention, a lot of the studies on microplastics are sloppily done and the conclusions are overreaching. These toxicology studies are certainly not up to the standard of the safety studies that are run on pharmaceuticals. The question is if they need to be in order for us to take action on microplastics. Personally, I think the risk/reward ratio is now clearly in favor of taking action on microplastics, even if I have some problems with the studies and I'm not as confident as the OP.
>In diseased tissue samples of people with chronic illnesses (IBD [6], Dementia [7], heart disease [8]), microplastic prevalence is significantly higher than healthy tissue.
this is very much not the same thing as "microplastics cause chronic illness", even though it's worded in a way that clearly wants to make you think that.
Does it need to be the same thing, though, before we consider actions the Precautionary Principle might point toward?
The precautionary principle is bad epistemology and shouldn’t be used to argue in opposition to anything. If we’re considering actions to ban or reduce microplastics it should be backed by a reasoned explanation for why we should do so.
And where does it point toward? Other some untenable position such as "ban all plastics", which may very well produce more harm?
The discourse around microplastics is pretty wild. The sport is finding them in random places, often at parts-per-billion or parts-per-trillion levels that we don't really use to look for most other substances. And the implication is essentially "progress bad" or "consumerism bad". No clear evidence of human harm, no realistic policy prescriptions - so what do we expect to happen, exactly? This it not a case of corporate greed or deception.
Our bodies also contain a fair amount of sand. Probably at levels higher than parts-per-billion. Is it bad? Sometimes! Where does the precautionary principle lead us on that?
Make the plastic manufacturers own the external costs by requiring they fund proper disposal sites/messaging, if only to start making up for all the bullshit propaganda about recycling that's greatly exacerbated the problem.
While we're here, let's have them fund future treatment when we discover that illness has been caused by plastic.
> Make the plastic manufacturers own the external costs by requiring they fund proper disposal sites/messaging,
I think you fail to understand the reality of the problem.
In western countries, plastic "trash" is not really the problem. It's highly visible and it would always be nice to reduce it of course.
The majority of uncontained environmental microplastics comes from vehicle tires and clothing/textiles. Clothing and other textiles (e.g., carpets) being the biggest source, more than 1/3rd. After that it's probably building materials, paints, machinery and factory parts, etc.
Disposal sites and messaging will not do anything. You can be a perfectly compliant goodly consumer who dutifully puts their old clothes in the trash and pays the disposal fees for their old tires or rides busses. You'd still be contributing enormously to environmental microplastic load.
All natural fiber clothes, cycle everywhere, don't wear sneakers or other kind of plastic or synthetic rubber shoes, don't have synthetic carpets or drapes, don't paint your house, etc... now you're starting to get somewhere.
But the machinery required for you to stay alive, moving goods and services around, pumping your water, people going to work to keep your electricity on, package your food, etc... all still pumping out microplastics.
Disposal and messaging just won't cut it. And without a bunch of astounding and vanishingly unlikely breakthroughs, getting rid of microplastics from the top 4-5 sources will make net zero CO2 look like a walk in the park. Therefore we have to accept microplastics at enormous scale and work with that. Not to say we shouldn't attempt to reduce it where possible of course we should, but it won't be reduced to insignificant. So I think what needs to be done is well funded research into the effects of existing and new types of plastics, and into new materials and techniques for cleanup or containment. That way we have a chance to discover and limit or ban the worst of the worst before they can become too pervasive.
As far as reduction goes, possibly some small incentives to avoid plastics in consumer items (clothes, carpets, etc) might help. The messaging really can not be the same idiotic and counterproductive alarmism and blame and guilt campaigns led by wealthy private jet and mega yacht owning billionaires of the climate change debacle. Just gently make people aware they could look for natural fiber clothes, perhaps modest and commensurate added costs on plastics manufacturers to fund this research and containment, etc.
Another source of microplastics in the human body is from food that was microwaved in a plastic container.
Why stop there? It’s in meat, water, mother’s milk, and newborns are even born with microplastics already in them.
Why not start with the large sources that you can personally control?
> One 2023 study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology found that microwaving plastic food containers releases more than 2 billion nanoplastics (smaller microplastics) and 4 million microplastics for every square centimeter of the container.
https://www.prevention.com/health/a65025549/can-you-microwav...
"Ban all plastics" is a strawman that will not happen and no mainstream opinion is suggesting. But there is a wide spectrum of possibilities between "ban all plastics" and "do nothing".
A principal concern is ingestion of microplastics via food packaging, utensils, cookware, etc. There are non-plastic substitutions available for many of these items, and a precautionary approach would be to regulate to require them, where it is economically feasible, until such time as the effects of microplastic ingestion are better understood.
Synthetic fibers are another. They're absolutely everywhere.
I don't think there's any more room for not considering underestimating the importance of beginning to start the process-of mulling over the conceptualisation of starting to worry.
And the time to do it is … very soon.
I intellectually resolve to avoid disagreement with the philosophies your output indicates.
It's saying that there could be a link and a link has been found on mice. That and the fact that the human body is not supposed to be running partially on plastic should trigger some actions.
Exactly the same argument could be (and unfortunately, has been) made about vaccines. For all we know, microplastics could be making us healthier. I don't believe that's true, and I'm avoiding plastic where I can, but the fact that we have it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.
Not really. With vaccines you can have controlled groups (vaccinated or not) and study the benefits versus risks. This is done before any vaccine is introduced to the public, any vaccine showing not enough benefits versus risks is discarded.
We do not have this luxuary with plastic. Controlled groups are not possible, asking that risks inherent to micro-plastics in human body are proven is therefore impossible.
To compare back to vaccines, it would be like vaccinating very single human, with a vaccine which is not tested and which purpose is unknown. Then asking someone to scientifically prove that this vaccine causes health problems as a condition to stop systematically vaccinating every single human.
it took me a minute to parse that sentence also. They are saying that health tissue makes up < 100% of the body, but that microplastics can be found in a full 100% of the body (healthy and non-healthy). Therefore microplastic prevalence > healthy tissue. It's saying that there is no part of the body that isn't impacted
I think it's saying there's more microplastics in unhealthy than healthy tissue is all, your interpretation is technically possible but phrasing it that way would be so misleading as to basically be lying.
The reason more microplastics in unhealthy tissue doesn't necessarily mean microplastics cause unhealthy tissue is that unhealthy tissue would be worse at removing substances irrespective of whether the substances cause the harm.
We’ve seen it with lead, asbestos, and PFAS — decades of denial, then belated regulation, then generations living with the consequences. The only difference is timing —and whether you wait for policy to catch up or act on what the science already shows. Think it’s time to push for more studies on the health consequences of microplastics
Any thoughts on the temperature of plastics? Looks like a takeout container at 95C (soup, for example) can release 50% more particles than at 50C [1], but how much of overall ingestion comes from this source? Several friends of mine avoid takeout for this reason, is that rational?
[1] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2025/an/d4an0137...
I've been having a good time chatting with Deep Research LLMs about this. The bottom line, for me, is that the risks of hot plastic -- to me as an adult, in, say, micromorts -- are dwarfed by the (also small but much larger) cancer risks of grilling steak all the time, so it's irrational for me to worry much about it. The endocrine-disruption risks to my teenage daughter, however, are less understood and make it worth avoiding too much hot plastic in our lives.
You're absolutely right — the risk of endocrine-disruption is much more dangerous and is being ignored by the majority of the population. What an insightful take!
Would you like me to expand on the reasons endocrine-disruptions are the bigger risk? Or would you like me to explore other ways in which microplastics might be dangerous to your health?
Rrrrgh. Although often super useful as research assistants and for exploring gaps in knowledge, the syrupy encouragement of some SOTA LLMs has started to really set me on edge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzw_grLzjw&t=427s
55x for BPA? It's pretty annoying how wide an umbrella term microplastics are.
I have often wondered why the government doesn't do anything about this. Is the science not clear enough yet?
Quick search shows that we knew about lead hazards as early as the 1920s/1930s, but it took until the 1970s to get regulation about lead paint and gas - hoping we don't repeat that in this case
> Is the science not clear enough yet
No.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00405-8
(https://web.archive.org/web/20250211144614/https://www.natur... if you need)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39900298/
Are the mouse studies not worrying enough for you to change your behaviour?
"Your" behavior??? The second you try to put this on individuals, you lose the plot and it turns into another "personal carbon footprint" scam like what BP pulled in 2004[1]. The only way out of this is public policy and international cooperation.
I don't know what the most common sources of microplastic particles are, but the messaging needs to be such that people know we aren't getting rid of all plastics, just the stupid ones that are most responsible for potentially harming us. I think straws were banned because there was a video of a plastic straw stuck in sea turtle's nose, not because they're one of the top sources.
[1]: https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...
In micro and nano scale things can behave differently so it is quite hard to decide what to ban.
Plastic straws and caps attached to bottles - reason was that there are too many of them and people don’t behave properly and don't throw things in the trash and throw them on the ground where they are eaten by animals. At some British beach they counted >100 caps per 100 m (or something similar, it was a surprising number).
In contrast to “personal carbon footprint”, micro plastics do affect _your_ long-term health. Still, there’s a limit to how much you can avoid it.
If historically worries that arose in mouse studies replicated with high reliability in humans, we would not wait for the results of human trials to apply what we learned for mice to humans on anything of importance.
It's not that we want to do humans trials. We do it because, apparently, it has been observed that it's unreasonable not to do it before applying something we observed in mice to humans.
Are the mouse studies not worrying enough for you to change your behaviour?
Change to what?
Animal models have flaws. They have doubled the lifespan of the naked mole rat, which has done bupkis for humans.
How well does the link need to be proven before we act?
The fact that we haven't found the causal link yet is not proof that there isn't one. And a whole lot of correlation suggests that there is. Why should we not take this as yet another reason to regulate throwaway plastic?
>How well does the link need to be proven before we act?
I'd settle for "at all, even a little."
It’s hard for science to prove because there’s no control group - everyone is exposed.
There’s also no clear definition of microplastics that I’ve seen. Different plastics have different toxicitiy
For what it’s worth, you don’t need a randomized controlled trial if you can offer an explanation for how microplastics affect human health.
Hence the classic joke “As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data.”
It's a bit too much of an umbrella term for regulation to fix in one swoop, but if i were alive in the 50s and had the internet i simply would not buy lead-paint.
> if i were alive in the 50s and had the internet i simply would not buy lead-paint
The contamination is so widespread and is in things you can't avoid (like the air) but I have made some lifestyle changes that I hope decrease my exposure at least a little bit. I:
- don't drink water out of plastic bottles
- don't use any plastic dishes at home
- switched from using tupperware for food storage to mason jars
- use bedding made from natural materials (mostly cotton)
- prefer clothing made from cotton as opposed to polyester (exception: some exercise clothing)
- don't eat meat (this was not because of concern about plastic, but I think it's helpful here too)
My family mocks me for this, but I also hold my breath when I clean the lint filter in the dryer, because that cloud of dust that shoots up is, I believe anyway, a whole pile of breathable microplastics.
Preliminary studies show that you are actually drastically impacting your plastic intake. Try brushing your teeth with nonplastics too!
Could you explain why?
Plastiphobia, mostly.
And not buying plastic is
not always an option and to some this entire concern could be considered a luxury.
Who are you trying to communicate this issue to and what solutions are there that they’d find reasonable until governments address it? If it’s simply “don’t buy plastic” then I understand that I’m out of bounds. Perhaps along with many others.
Nice looking page.
Animal studies seem like the best tool for untangling this, and they indicate that high plastic doses cause a variety of health effects, some of which seem to align with broad health trends we see in our population over time, like in fertility.
It's not like there's zero data to inform the risk calculation.
Science works with cases with no control groups all the time
Yes but in those situations, you typically can at best find associations between variables and outcomes. We really want evidence of causality, although it sort of depends on how you interpret the precautionary principle.
Yes, but teasing apart causality and confounding variables is very difficult.
Plastics are largely a petroleum product, right? That particular resource extraction industry pretty much has a lock on public policy.
The science is very clear on microplastics existing and being in our bodies.
The science linking that to specific outcomes/harm is almost non existent from what I understand.
Edit: to those downvoting - I'm not downplaying anything here, I agree they're concerning and we should be worried - just stating the fact that as far as I know the research on outcomes is very inconclusive at this point.
Governments aren't doing much about climate change and the science is very clear on that.
>I have often wondered why the government doesn't do anything about this. Is the science not clear enough yet?
Government is always on your side!
If the current US government started doing anything about it right now, i would immediately regard it as 100% horseshit. America won't be in any position to lead ... anything scientific, medical or even thoughtful for a generation or two, at least.
I know there are still people hanging on in their fields trying to do the right things, but the bullshit engine in DC is so strong now that nothing is believable. If you are working in scientific research in America today, your only career goal needs to be emigration.
Saying, "I avoid plastic products" is kind of like saying "I never smoke" while sitting in a room filled with people smoking.
There is no avoiding it. We are all surrounded by plastics in the air, water, soil, etc.
Surrounded is very much the word, depending on what type of clothing you are wearing.
Aren't nanoplastics a larger concern?
All microplastics out in the open will degrade to nanoplastics at some point, and those find it much easier to infiltrate the human body. They penetrate the blood-brain barrier.
This leads me to believe that it's literally impossible to avoid. The air/water supply must be getting more poluted by the minute with these things
I wonder if plastics, being non-polar, might accumulate in organs which are a bit on the "oily" side - the liver, adipose tissue, and the brain.
Many of these microplastic studies [1-9] rely on small sample sizes (e.g., n=10 for brain tissue) and detection methods that could pick up contamination from lab equipment itself. It reminds me of when everyone was afraid of BPA
And what defines a “microplastic”? There’s so many different types of plastics that all have different effects on the body
What’s really the health trade-off compared to having to monitor every tiny little thing
>It reminds me of when everyone was afraid of BPA
That's still the case.
>And what defines a “microplastic”? There’s so many different types of plastics that all have different effects on the body
It's not that hard to constrain it to synthetic organic polymers (aka plastics) that are small enough (smaller than 5.0 mm).
Even if there are some exceptions also considered plastics, this already covers 99% of the ones to worry about.
And the effects we worry about are from the presense of millions of hard synthetic micromaterials like that in the bloodstream, organs, and even the brain.
That's enough of a concern for the whole class, before we start to care about them "all having different effects on the body" (which is barely a given).
> smaller than 5.0 mm
There are no "millions" of 5mm plastic pieces in your bloodstream. That's about a rice grain. If there would be even a single one between 5mm and 1mm it would cause an almost immediate obstruction.
What part of "smaller than" was difficult to parse?
Microplastics can be defined as < 5mm (e.g. EPA uses that definition), doesn't mean the larger ones are in the bloodstream, or even less so, the brain.
But such "sizable" ones in the environment can and are be broken down, digested, shed smaller micro- and nanoplastics by the loads, and so on.
Do you happen to know whether the worry is about the inertness of microplastics, and hence the physical damage of the particles. Or is it in the plastics being chemically interactive with tissue?
Both cases are considered harmful, the surer and heavier more general case being for the former.
The inertness alone means boost in inflamattion, damaged cells, etc. Just consider that asbestos is biologically/chemically inert too - the issues come from inflammation, scarring, dna damage, etc.
But (and varying per microplastic case on lots of factors: composition, dyes used, etc), the chemical interaction can also play a role.
> What’s really the health trade-off compared to having to monitor every tiny little thing
I'd say that there's sure a health benefit for continuing studies on microplastics. Even if they're difficult to conduct, it's probably a good idea to learn more aboht microplastics and health because, barring some new way to remove microplastics, it seems likely that the ambient concentration of them will only increase in the future.
there are no arguments that propose the health benifits of micro plastics......
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I think microplastics, and the chemicals that leach from them, plasticizers, are incredibly serious issues. In fact, my company, NeutraOat (neutraoat.com), is creating a modified oat fiber supplement to trap plasticizers in the gut and remove them from the bloodstream.
On the other hand, as other commenters mention, a lot of the studies on microplastics are sloppily done and the conclusions are overreaching. These toxicology studies are certainly not up to the standard of the safety studies that are run on pharmaceuticals. The question is if they need to be in order for us to take action on microplastics. Personally, I think the risk/reward ratio is now clearly in favor of taking action on microplastics, even if I have some problems with the studies and I'm not as confident as the OP.