Over the past decade, the medical community has become increasingly alarmed by the omnipresence of micro- and nanoplastics, tiny plastic particles found by the thousands in food, bottled water and, increasingly, more, in our own bodies.
Recent medical studies have detected the presence of plastic in blood samples, in breast milk, in placental tissues and even in the lungs.
So when Raffaele Marfella, a surgeon and professor of internal medicine at the Luigi Vanvitelli University of Campania in Naples, and colleagues conducted a study to examine plaque taken from the arteries of people with cardiovascular disease, they did not Was surprised to find that half of the samples contained miniature fragments of plastic.
But a closer look at the data revealed a worrying trend: Patients who had accumulated plastic in their arteries all had much more advanced disease. By following them over the next three years, they found that these people were four and a half times more likely to die or suffer a non-fatal stroke, compared to patients whose samples contained no plastic.
Marfella believes the presence of plastic could have actively accelerated the deterioration of their health, by causing inflammation in the arteries. “I can say with reasonable certainty that micro- and nanoplastic contamination results in impaired tissue health,” he says.
It is one of the first studies to identify a link between plastic deposition and decline in human health. But we still need to learn more about how and why plastic can harm the human body and, above all, what action we should take.
What are microplastics and where do they come from?
Plastic particles capable of entering the human body are either microplastics, less than 5 millimeters wide, or nanoplastics, less than 1 millimeter wide.
They are believed to come from the constant degradation of products such as car tires, mass-produced synthetic clothing and paint used to cover buildings and roads. However, many scientists believe that single-use plastics such as water bottles, plastic cutlery, food containers, wrappers, cotton swab sticks, plastic bags and wet wipes are the main guilty.
“Single-use plastic bottles reduce production and transportation costs (of beverages), but they are one of the main sources of micro- and nanoplastics,” says Dick Vethaak, professor emeritus of water quality and health at VU University Amsterdam and Utrecht University. in the Nederlands. “Banning them is a great idea because alternative, safer and more sustainable materials are already available on the market. As consumers, many of us can make the decision ourselves whether to use glass bottles or carry our drinking water in reusable containers.
It is believed that we inadvertently consume these plastic particles, either by inhaling them or ingesting them. Earlier this year, a study by researchers at Columbia University in New York identified a quarter of a million nanoplastics in a single liter of bottled water. Another worrying paper found that babies fed formula prepared in propylene bottles are exposed to high levels of microplastics.
What do we know about the impact on human health?
There are over 10,000 different chemicals found in various plastics, some of which are known carcinogens and others capable of disrupting vital hormonal systems.
For this reason, some researchers have begun to wonder whether the accumulation of plastic over several decades could be a contributing factor to the increase in cases of colorectal cancer among those under 50. Last year, a group of bowel cancer and toxicology experts in New Zealand published a paper highlighting that new research suggests that not all microplastics are excreted from the body and, therefore, some may persist in the colon where they could disrupt the internal system. layer of mucus. This is a key barrier that protects the colon wall from bacteria and toxic chemicals and, they suggest, if this barrier is damaged by plastic particles, colon cells could be at much greater risk of exposure. potential carcinogens.
While some of these hypotheses still remain speculative, there is growing evidence that plastic is actively harming our guts. In a 2021 study, microplastic levels were found to be much higher in stool samples from people with inflammatory bowel disease than in healthy individuals. People with more severe disease had even greater amounts of plastic in their stool.
Matthew Campen, a professor at the University of New Mexico who has studied microplastics, isn’t convinced that plastics themselves are necessarily harmful, but the problem lies more in their quantity.
“Plastics are relatively safe, it’s just that they seem to be at alarming levels (in the environment) and getting worse,” he says. “We believe that the main route of entry into the body is through the intestine and that this is an important issue that needs to be better understood.”
What else do you need to know?
Many questions remain unanswered, ranging from whether certain forms of plastic are more harmful than others, whether certain sizes or shapes are more likely to inflict harm, and what that tells us about their origin.
“Most particles found in the human body appear to be less than 2 micrometers in length and 200 nanometers in width, and are often much smaller,” says Campen. “They appear to have the appearance of shards, like very old, brittle plastic that has torn apart over the years. We don’t yet know exactly how this affects biological interactions.
Vethaak predicts that in the coming years we will learn even more about how much plastic is in our bodies, where it goes and what it does.
“Are the doses of plastic particles in our blood and tissues high enough to trigger or mediate (biological) responses leading to disease? he says. “This information will be crucial for risk assessments, but this data may still be available several years from now. »
How can we eliminate them or reduce their impact?
Every year, humanity produces more than 350 million tons of plastic waste, and experts say the only solution is to find more efficient ways to degrade it. In the future, certain microbes could help us design more useful waste disposal plants, with various laboratory experiments suggesting that strains of Rhodococcus ruber and even E.coli could be used to digest common plastics such as polyethylene terephthalate and polyurethane.
Campen says governments need to invest more in burning plastics to produce energy to deal with the large quantities of plastic stored in landfills around the world, some of which ends up in oceans and water supplies. ‘water.
“Globally, I think the best solution is to quickly move to waste-to-energy plants,” he explains. “The waste we produce every day as individuals is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the plastics already buried in landfills. We need to consider active recovery and incineration of plastics. It seems like a bad idea from the point of view of global warming, but ultimately it’s no worse than coal.”
Completely avoiding plastic is virtually impossible as it is so omnipresent in our lives, from food packaging to cling film, clothing and disposable wipes. Even some tea bags contain a form of plastic called polypropylene to seal them and prevent their contents from spilling through the box and into your cup.
But microplastic experts like Vethaak say there are a few important steps you can take to minimize the amount of plastic you ingest in your daily life. In addition to staying away from bottled water, he especially stresses avoiding heating food in Tupperware. This is because every time you microwave something in a plastic container, the chemicals in the plastic leach into the food, while the intense temperatures actively degrade the plastic on a microscopic level, eliminating the micro and nanoplastics that eventually end up in your body.
Vethaak also recommends installing reverse osmosis water filters in your home, which can remove some microplastics from tap water.
However, because plastic is so ingrained in our world, the scary truth is that many of us can do little to avoid it. For example, 82% of baby bottles worldwide are made from polypropylene, although some brands like Hevea have started to offer alternatives based on glass and natural rubber.
“Fundamentally, we need to replace plastics with alternative, safer and more sustainable materials, and this needs to be done as soon as possible to minimize health risks,” says Vethaak. “But in the meantime, avoid drinks and foods exposed to plastic as much as possible.”
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