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Interesting. I don't believe any causality has been determined at this time.
"The negative impacts of plastic on human health are increasingly visible and increasingly costly. This March, the New England Journal of Medicine released the results of a study detecting micro- and nanoplastics in the carotid artery plaque of 58% of patients, and found that it measurably increased the risk of heart attack, stroke, and all-cause mortality in those patients.
What does this mean for us? On Thursday, May 2 from 7-8pm ET, please join Beyond Plastics for a conversation with Philip J. Landrigan, M.D. on Plastics and Your Health.
Plastic exacts a heavy price in human and environmental health. Micro-and nano plastics are present in the air, water, and soil, and throughout the food web. They are also present inside of us. Researchers have located micro- and nanoplastics in human intestine, placenta, liver, spleen, and lymph node tissues, as well as in blood, breast milk, and the fetus. Chemicals added to plastics such as PFAS, phthalates, and bisphenols are present in the bodies of nearly all Americans. Dr. Landrigan, who is a pediatrician and toxicologist, is at the forefront of research and thinking about what this means for our health and longevity. In the pages of March’s New England Journal he asks: Should exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics be considered a cardiovascular risk factor? What organs in addition to the heart may be at risk? How can we reduce exposure?"
I've been becoming more and more aware of this and it is really very scary when you stop and think about all the plastic we use and are around on a daily basis.
The nejm article is paywalled, so they only give the abstract which makes the statement that pts with the plastics had higher rates of MI than those without, but they don't give the numbers. That "increased risk may or may not be impressive. I bet it isn't.....
....There are 100s of articles in the bio- lit that describe the presence of microplastics in every species they ever looked at, but NONE of them can describe any problems it causes.... OTOH, natural things-- like a grain of sand irritating an oyster to form a pearl or cattle eating fescue contaminated with fungus and getting very sick-- commonly cause problems.
There's already so much microplastics in the environment that there's nothing we can do about it, so we are helpless to control it.
Moral-- don't worry about things you can't control, and this probably isn't a problem anyway-- just researchers begging for more funding.....No problem = no more money.
The nejm article is paywalled, so they only give the abstract which makes the statement that pts with the plastics had higher rates of MI than those without, but they don't give the numbers. That "increased risk may or may not be impressive. I bet it isn't.....
....There are 100s of articles in the bio- lit that describe the presence of microplastics in every species they ever looked at, but NONE of them can describe any problems it causes.... OTOH, natural things-- like a grain of sand irritating an oyster to form a pearl or cattle eating fescue contaminated with fungus and getting very sick-- commonly cause problems.
There's already so much microplastics in the environment that there's nothing we can do about it, so we are helpless to control it.
Moral-- don't worry about things you can't control, and this probably isn't a problem anyway-- just researchers begging for more funding.....No problem = no more money.
Plastics present no problem to our health and there's nothing that can be done about it? Sorry, this is a patently ridiculous statement.
Plastics present no problem to our health and there's nothing that can be done about it? Sorry, this is a patently ridiculous statement.
This is the only paper I've heard of that claims to find pathology from microplastics exposure.....My first question, knowing from the plethora of other papers I've seen that microplastics are ubiquitous in the environment, is how did they ever find people NOT exposed to microplastics?....and even if we did stop using all plastics, how do we get rid of that already out there?...There's nothing we can do about that now. QED.
I used to study common plastics in a previous job I worked, as it was a highly important aspect of my job. What I found was deeply concerning enough that I now avoid plastic as much as possible, in food/liquid products I buy and containers I use.
Always choose glass, stainless steel, ceramic, and paper (non-recycled) for any and all liquid and food storage when possible. And don't be surprised in the future when autopsies are done, that plastic residue is found in the body. We may already be at that point, though the plastic revolution - especially with those d@mn pervasive water bottles - is relatively new.
Unless it was macro or micro sized, plastic is inert and passes right through us.
If you take a bite out of your plastic milk bottle, the chunk swallowed will pass right thru...but apparently "microplastic" is everywhere. It's minute sized chips/dusts- on Angstrom & microgram scale. We breathe it in, swallow it, maybe even absorb it thru our skin.
It is chemically quite inert. Higher order life forms tend to deal with foreign bodies by an immune response-- but that's almost exclusively limited to attacking proteinaceous material, or to encapsulate foreign material with fibrous scar tissue. In the latter case, the foreign material is no longer "in" your body., but surrounded by your body. Physiologically a big difference.
Plastics like the notorious BPAs have some estrogenic properties, but lab tests on rodents show they only have measurable physiological effects when applied in truck load doses, not the handful of parts per billion we see in the real world.
The research paper cited in the OP claims they isolated microplastics in some coronary plaque....I won't question that because I don't have access to the paper stating it's methods or data....but superficially, because microplastic is already everywhere, why don't they see it in all pts' plaque?
If you take a bite out of your plastic milk bottle, the chunk swallowed will pass right thru...but apparently "microplastic" is everywhere. It's minute sized chips/dusts- on Angstrom & microgram scale. We breathe it in, swallow it, maybe even absorb it thru our skin.
It is chemically quite inert. Higher order life forms tend to deal with foreign bodies by an immune response-- but that's almost exclusively limited to attacking proteinaceous material, or to encapsulate foreign material with fibrous scar tissue. In the latter case, the foreign material is no longer "in" your body., but surrounded by your body. Physiologically a big difference.
Plastics like the notorious BPAs have some estrogenic properties, but lab tests on rodents show they only have measurable physiological effects when applied in truck load doses, not the handful of parts per billion we see in the real world.
The research paper cited in the OP claims they isolated microplastics in some coronary plaque....I won't question that because I don't have access to the paper stating it's methods or data....but superficially, because microplastic is already everywhere, why don't they see it in all pts' plaque?
Maybe for the same reason that some smokers develop lung cancer and some don’t. And some non-smokers develop lung cancer and some don’t. And some people develop all kinds of cancers and diseases, and some don’t.
Who knows? I’m sure not going to lose sleep over it.
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