They interfere with the functions of cells and organs and affect the hormones your body produces, which can cause all sorts of health and developmental issues, especially in children.
Microplastics are plastic fragments up to 5 millimeters long. These occur because plastic never goes away and instead just breaks down into finer and finer particles.
In short, they pollute your body and are so small that your body doesn’t filter them out. Due to this all humans are now born pre-polluted. According to Stanford, microplastic particles have been found in multiple organs and tissues, including the brain, testicles, heart, stomach, lymph nodes, and placenta. They’ve also been detected in urine, breastmilk, semen, and meconium, which is a newborn’s first stool. We’re always learning and trying to figure out solutions. Scientists don’t yet know how long microplastics stay in the body or how effects are tempered by genetics, the environment, or other factors. They haven’t determined whether some plastics or forms of exposure are worse than others. Nor do studies exist on the direct dangers of microplastics in humans.
According to Harvard, studies in cell cultures, marine wildlife, and animal models indicate that microplastics can cause oxidative damage, DNA damage, and changes in gene activity which are all known risks for cancer development. Other threats arise from chemicals in and on microplastic particles themselves, including plastic components — such as BPA, phthalates, and heavy metals — that are known or suspected to cause disruption to nervous, reproductive, and other systems.
The issue with microplastics is that a lot of the potential effects have not been studied, or not studied extensively enough to understand their effects. There are certain microplastics, such as BPA, which we know cause harm, which has led to a lot of companies eliminating BPA from products.
>Other threats arise from chemicals in and on microplastic particles, including plastic components — such as BPA, phthalates, and heavy metals — that are known or suspected to cause disruption to nervous, reproductive, and other systems.
In other studies on microplastics, it’s been found they harm other organisms, or affect certain biologic processes:
>Lessons from the field of environmental toxicology raise flags about cancer and reproductive issues. Studies in cell cultures, marine wildlife, and animal models indicate that microplastics can cause oxidative damage, DNA damage, and changes in gene activity, known risks for cancer development.
If microplastics adversely affect biologic processes, it can be surmised that they would be harmful to people in general. However, that link does not necessarily exist. What is harmful to rats might not be harmful to humans. Perhaps there is harm to a biologic system, but the harm is not enough to matter for overall health.
However, because microplastic exposure may pose a risk to human health, there’s a growing movement to avoid microplastic exposure as much as possible.
They might be. They might not be. There are many, many early studies suggesting possible harms… but no high-power causative studies showing direct harms. This could be that 1) the heavy focus on microplastics is a fairly recent development and the harms haven’t been fully elucidated yet, or 2) the harms are relatively minor and so stronger study attempts haven’t gotten exciting results to publish.
One heuristic that can be helpful in understanding whether a newly discovered phenomenon is actually a problem is to look at when it started and then correlate that to rates of health issues. If it turns out in future causative analyses that microplastics cause obesity or decrease sperm count, that would track with some of our observations of health in the 20th century as plastics usage has risen. Many of the other 100,000 health maladies currently being laid at the feet of microplastics have remained mostly static or even decreased during the time those plastics have been accumulating, which gives us all very strong reason to believe that those analyzes are going to fail to replicate or be of very minor significance.
At their most basic principal, they just get stuck in places, like when trash gets stuck in the fishing net they originally may have come from. Depending on their size and where this happens, it can be more or less problematic. Then the other issue is in what the plastics are actually made of, so while some of them are effectively very long life, others do start to break down, and these chemicals can be quite problematic, specially in the places they may be stuck.
We don’t know exactly how microplastics screw with us, I’m not sure if we’ve conclusively documented that they do screw with us. But other inorganic materials that accumulate in the body, like heavy metals, are definitely for sure bad for us, so we’re pretty darn sure that microplastics are bad for us too.
You know how leaded gasoline was a thing for fifty years before we figured out it was definitely for sure giving people lead poisoning and banned it? We’re in that middle 50 years vis-a-vis microplastics. …fun…
ETA: yes I know plastics are technically organic compounds, you know what I mean.
We just know that they are there, and there are some scientific studies that shows ways in which they might harm humans on a biologic scale – but nothing has definitively shown a cause-effect relationship between microplastics and actual health outcomes that we care about.
It is all conjecture and hypothesis (and a healthy dose of media scare tactics) at this point.
We don’t actually know for certain that many microplastics are bad for us.
We do know that they are showing up where we didn’t expect, which is inside our bodies. But this field is so new we actually don’t know what harm is being caused, if any, by microplastic particles being in our bodies.
It probably isn’t good that these things are showing up all up in our bodies, but at the same time the reason why isn’t immediately red-flagging everything is because plastics by their nature are very unreactive and durable (which is why they are able to persist stably into the tiny scales of being able to get into our various bodily fluids).
But a big problem is that even if you’re concerned about microplastics… there’s not really that much you can do. It’s ubiquitous.
My pathophysiology professor in college was taking part in a very in depth plastisizer study.
First thing they found is that plastisizer are everywhere. There is likely very few living creatures left of the planet that don’t have them inside their bodies.
They did studies on baby chicks and connected some findings they had found in the wild.
Globally male populations of birds are rapidly shrinking. Mostly female birds are being born. They were pretty confused as to why this would be happening. But noticed higher levels of plastisizer in bird communities that had more aggressive gender imbalances. As you can imagine, at some point that would make it really difficult for these bird species to reproduce and survive.
They studied chicks, by exposing hens to different levels of plastisizers. They noticed significantly less male chicks being born with the hens exposed to more plastisizers. A lot of the males born to these hens also had decreased parineum length, which is how some farmers check for the gender of the chicks when they are very young. Meaning it was having a notable effect on hormones during development.
This was apparently also documented with respect to plastic tubes in hospitals exposing fetuses with higher levels of plastisizers during pregnancy. Very few hospitals have yet to make an effort to change to safer materials due to cost.
I was going to take part in these studies but my life went a different direction before I could join in. But it was super interesting either way. Don’t quote me on this without doing your own research though. I’m digging in my brain for information I was given 8 years ago.
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They interfere with the functions of cells and organs and affect the hormones your body produces, which can cause all sorts of health and developmental issues, especially in children.
Microplastics are plastic fragments up to 5 millimeters long. These occur because plastic never goes away and instead just breaks down into finer and finer particles.
In short, they pollute your body and are so small that your body doesn’t filter them out. Due to this all humans are now born pre-polluted. According to Stanford, microplastic particles have been found in multiple organs and tissues, including the brain, testicles, heart, stomach, lymph nodes, and placenta. They’ve also been detected in urine, breastmilk, semen, and meconium, which is a newborn’s first stool. We’re always learning and trying to figure out solutions. Scientists don’t yet know how long microplastics stay in the body or how effects are tempered by genetics, the environment, or other factors. They haven’t determined whether some plastics or forms of exposure are worse than others. Nor do studies exist on the direct dangers of microplastics in humans.
According to Harvard, studies in cell cultures, marine wildlife, and animal models indicate that microplastics can cause oxidative damage, DNA damage, and changes in gene activity which are all known risks for cancer development. Other threats arise from chemicals in and on microplastic particles themselves, including plastic components — such as BPA, phthalates, and heavy metals — that are known or suspected to cause disruption to nervous, reproductive, and other systems.
The issue with microplastics is that a lot of the potential effects have not been studied, or not studied extensively enough to understand their effects. There are certain microplastics, such as BPA, which we know cause harm, which has led to a lot of companies eliminating BPA from products.
>Other threats arise from chemicals in and on microplastic particles, including plastic components — such as BPA, phthalates, and heavy metals — that are known or suspected to cause disruption to nervous, reproductive, and other systems.
In other studies on microplastics, it’s been found they harm other organisms, or affect certain biologic processes:
>Lessons from the field of environmental toxicology raise flags about cancer and reproductive issues. Studies in cell cultures, marine wildlife, and animal models indicate that microplastics can cause oxidative damage, DNA damage, and changes in gene activity, known risks for cancer development.
https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/microplastics-everywhere
If microplastics adversely affect biologic processes, it can be surmised that they would be harmful to people in general. However, that link does not necessarily exist. What is harmful to rats might not be harmful to humans. Perhaps there is harm to a biologic system, but the harm is not enough to matter for overall health.
However, because microplastic exposure may pose a risk to human health, there’s a growing movement to avoid microplastic exposure as much as possible.
Microplaatics in bacteria are creating antibiotic resistant strains.
They might be. They might not be. There are many, many early studies suggesting possible harms… but no high-power causative studies showing direct harms. This could be that 1) the heavy focus on microplastics is a fairly recent development and the harms haven’t been fully elucidated yet, or 2) the harms are relatively minor and so stronger study attempts haven’t gotten exciting results to publish.
One heuristic that can be helpful in understanding whether a newly discovered phenomenon is actually a problem is to look at when it started and then correlate that to rates of health issues. If it turns out in future causative analyses that microplastics cause obesity or decrease sperm count, that would track with some of our observations of health in the 20th century as plastics usage has risen. Many of the other 100,000 health maladies currently being laid at the feet of microplastics have remained mostly static or even decreased during the time those plastics have been accumulating, which gives us all very strong reason to believe that those analyzes are going to fail to replicate or be of very minor significance.
At their most basic principal, they just get stuck in places, like when trash gets stuck in the fishing net they originally may have come from. Depending on their size and where this happens, it can be more or less problematic. Then the other issue is in what the plastics are actually made of, so while some of them are effectively very long life, others do start to break down, and these chemicals can be quite problematic, specially in the places they may be stuck.
✨️ we don’t know yet ✨️
We don’t know exactly how microplastics screw with us, I’m not sure if we’ve conclusively documented that they do screw with us. But other inorganic materials that accumulate in the body, like heavy metals, are definitely for sure bad for us, so we’re pretty darn sure that microplastics are bad for us too.
You know how leaded gasoline was a thing for fifty years before we figured out it was definitely for sure giving people lead poisoning and banned it? We’re in that middle 50 years vis-a-vis microplastics. …fun…
ETA: yes I know plastics are technically organic compounds, you know what I mean.
We don’t actually know if they are bad for us.
We just know that they are there, and there are some scientific studies that shows ways in which they might harm humans on a biologic scale – but nothing has definitively shown a cause-effect relationship between microplastics and actual health outcomes that we care about.
It is all conjecture and hypothesis (and a healthy dose of media scare tactics) at this point.
We don’t actually know for certain that many microplastics are bad for us.
We do know that they are showing up where we didn’t expect, which is inside our bodies. But this field is so new we actually don’t know what harm is being caused, if any, by microplastic particles being in our bodies.
It probably isn’t good that these things are showing up all up in our bodies, but at the same time the reason why isn’t immediately red-flagging everything is because plastics by their nature are very unreactive and durable (which is why they are able to persist stably into the tiny scales of being able to get into our various bodily fluids).
But a big problem is that even if you’re concerned about microplastics… there’s not really that much you can do. It’s ubiquitous.
I’m scared now… this is just as bad or worse longterm than lead
Aside from what others are saying about microplastics themselves, microplastics also serve as carriers of other harmful compounds / chemicals.
IE they’re the car driving in a bunch of potentially dangerous passengers.
My pathophysiology professor in college was taking part in a very in depth plastisizer study.
First thing they found is that plastisizer are everywhere. There is likely very few living creatures left of the planet that don’t have them inside their bodies.
They did studies on baby chicks and connected some findings they had found in the wild.
Globally male populations of birds are rapidly shrinking. Mostly female birds are being born. They were pretty confused as to why this would be happening. But noticed higher levels of plastisizer in bird communities that had more aggressive gender imbalances. As you can imagine, at some point that would make it really difficult for these bird species to reproduce and survive.
They studied chicks, by exposing hens to different levels of plastisizers. They noticed significantly less male chicks being born with the hens exposed to more plastisizers. A lot of the males born to these hens also had decreased parineum length, which is how some farmers check for the gender of the chicks when they are very young. Meaning it was having a notable effect on hormones during development.
This was apparently also documented with respect to plastic tubes in hospitals exposing fetuses with higher levels of plastisizers during pregnancy. Very few hospitals have yet to make an effort to change to safer materials due to cost.
I was going to take part in these studies but my life went a different direction before I could join in. But it was super interesting either way. Don’t quote me on this without doing your own research though. I’m digging in my brain for information I was given 8 years ago.