Terrifying study: “total plastics mass concentration in brains increased over 50% in the past 8 years”. Their 2024 brain matter samples are on average 0.48% plastic by weight, if I am reading this correctly: “The brain samples, all derived from the frontal cortex, revealed substantially higher concentrations than liver or kidney, at 3,057 μg/g in 2016 samples and 4,806 μg/g (0.48%, by weight) in 2024 samples, ranging as high as 8,861 μg/g.”
The only good news is that apparently the brain can clear these particles; the problem is that there is a steadily increasing amount of exposure which means that rather than clearance, there is accumulation.
Easy on the hyperbole. Let's assume that this study is correct, and everyone at median age of 50 is walking around with this level of microplastics in the stated organs. Are we all dead? Disabled? Dying? No. Our lifespans are amongst the longest in human history. I'm doing OK. How about you?
Far bigger practical concerns are that we're fat and lethargic and suffering from metabolic disease, heart disease, cancer and diabetes en masse because we eat too much. About the only thing you can do with this finding is wave your hands around and make hypothetical links to this and that (as they do in the paper), or try to claim that this is really, secretly the underlying cause of the stuff that is actually, observably killing us.
I'm not saying there's no concern here, but I am not "terrified" of this. I am actually scared of getting fat, or falling down when I get old from being weak. These are things that happen to nearly all of us.
Anyway, first rule of science: when we look for things, we find things. If you are "terrified" by everything new you find, you are applying an emotional judgment to what you see, and not being objective enough.
> you are applying an emotional judgment to what you see, and not being objective enough.
The notion that scientists can or should be emotionless, and that this somehow produces 'objectivity', should really be consigned to the history books. Expectation and promotion of emotional detachment leads to burn out, anxiety, unrealistic expectations, unsupportive working environments, poor judgement, dehumanising of experimental subjects, etc etc etc. See the majority medical and psychiatric science history.
I'd far prefer different terminology. Maybe 'calm' or similar. Expecting and encouraging scientists to be calm is more realistic and achievable, and doesn't deny the fundamental reality that much of human existence has an emotional component.
Panicking over microplastics in human brains is surely an entirely understandable reaction. Rather than criticising it, we can learn from it. I want my healthcare researchers to be calm but strongly motivated.
The problem with poisons is that we view them in a binary way. They're either bad, or they're not. They either hurt you, or they don't.
But in reality it doesn't always work this way. There's infinite levels of bad.
Eating off a lead plate, as the greeks did, is poisonous but certainty not deadly. Nobody was disabled.
Instead, the rich just slowly went insane over the course of their lives. Across decades, their mental state deteriorated as they grew mad. For their society, impossible to perceive. Too slow, too widespread.
Obviously we don't know the extent or even if there is anything bad about microplastics. But if there were, would we even be able to tell by the time we get there? Or would that just become life?
I've read a few years ago (pre-Covid) on nanoplastics about fertility, late miscarriages and premature birth, they found a lot of correlations and wrote that further research is needed to find if it's more than that.
I don't really care about plastics, fertility or fœtus so I won't pretend I do, but if you do, maybe look into it?
Not getting fat is easy, avoiding microplastics is not. One problem affects people with a certain lifestyle, the other affects everyone (it's an environmental issue).
Also, as the article points out, the amount of microplastics accumulated in living organisms is still rising. It's something that needs more attention.
I have to agree. Making a big deal about microplastics when we’re overweight, sedentary, and atherosclerotic seems like stepping over dollars to look for pennies.
>Terrifying study: “total plastics mass concentration in brains increased over 50% in the past 8 years
If as you claim the brain can clear out these particles, why is it terrifying? I have been asking for why microplastics are harmful and gotten a lot of great ideas but almost no studies or evidence. I guess we need to start researching the causal effects of MPs and not just how much MPs there are everywhere.
> The brain samples, all derived from the frontal cortex, revealed substantially higher concentrations than liver or kidney, at 3,057 μg/g in 2016 samples and 4,806 μg/g (0.48%, by weight) in 2024 samples, ranging as high as 8,861 μg/g.
Brains were 0.5% plastic by weight? The highest value was nearly 1% plastic.
Yup. They're extrapolating from uncalibrated GC/MS curves, and normalizing by mass of pre-processed sample. They also don't give any of the un-normalized data. I have zero faith in the accuracy of these numbers, but some faith in the inter-group comparisons.
The sensitivity of the GC/MS method makes me hypothesize that the stated values are massively inflated. Whatever error there was in that original measurement is probably amplified like crazy in scaling up to ug/g estimates.
> Micro- and Nanoplastics Breach the Blood–Brain Barrier (BBB): Biomolecular Corona’s Role Revealed
> The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is an important biological barrier that protects the brain from harmful substances. In our study we performed short term uptake studies in mice with orally administered polystyrene micro-/nanoparticles (9.55 µm, 1.14 µm, 0.293 µm). We show that nanometer sized particles—but not bigger particles—reach the brain within only 2 h after gavage. To understand the transport mechanism, we performed coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations on the interaction of DOPC bilayers with a polystyrene nanoparticle in the presence and absence of various coronae. We found that the composition of the biomolecular corona surrounding the plastic particles was critical for passage through the BBB. Cholesterol molecules enhanced the uptake of these contaminants into the membrane of the BBB, whereas the protein model inhibited it.
We’ve really screwed the pooch on this one. How many cancers, chronic diseases, birth defects, are a result of our mass pollution of this once pristine oasis of life, the only one we have?
If microplastics are directly causing illnesses and birth defects then we would've found out already. Past cases of mass illness caused by pollutants (lead gasoline, asbestos, minamata disease, thalidomide, chimney sweep's carcinoma, etc.) were uncovered quickly and usually addressed not long after. The fact we still can't pinpoint exactly how microplastics are harming us beyond that they are in places where they are not supposed to be, The one reassuring thing about this whole ordeal is plastics are largely inert, that's why they take forever to degrade.
I didn't go and look up the others but this argument by similarity, at least when applied to asbestos says the exact opposite to the claim you're trying to make. It's generally considered that industry/government was aware of the issues relating to asbestos in the '30s (and _started_ doing things about it then) but it wasn't until the 70's/80's (depending on the country) that its use was mostly stopped (and in places like Australia it wasn't outright banned until 2003).
This comment won't age well if we keep polluting the environment the way we are. Plastics will continue to grow as a problem if we keep using them at the scale we do.
The world retarded backwards socially in the last decade, standard of living declined, lowered testosterone levels, lower sperm counts, lower fertility rates, and perhaps lower IQ.
I suspected mass induced psychosis around Covid times. Now I suspect all the plastic people are consuming.
> The extent to which microplastics cause harm or toxicity is unclear, although recent studies associated MNP [micro- and nanoplastic] presence in carotid atheromas with increased inflammation and risk of future adverse cardiovascular events²⁻³. In controlled exposure studies, MNPs clearly enhance or drive toxic outcomes⁴⁻⁶. The mantra of the field of toxicology – “dose makes the poison” (Paracelsus) – renders such discoveries as easily anticipated; what is not clearly understood is the internal dose in humans.
While it's still debated, it seems likely that the BPAs in plastic will be classified as mildly carcinogenic at some point. It's probably not a big concern to be touching your phone case but maybe more so if it's millions of particles permanently inside you.
> When it comes to microplastic inhalation, Mongolia and China came in joint first place, with citizens of both countries inhaling more than 2.8 million microplastic particles a month. The United Kingdom came in third place, in joint place with Ireland, inhaling 791,500 particles per month. By comparison, the U.S. came in near the bottom of this list, in position 104 out of the 109 countries assessed, with only 10,500 microplastic particles inhaled per month.
Very amusing that after decades of warnings about microplastics, there haven't been any studies to move beyond the point of 'maybe they cause issues'. We can all only assume that they do, of course, because any normal society not entirely captured by capital would allocate money to research this topic thoroughly. The fact that we haven't means that they know it causes issues but it would be costly to do cleanup.
People are researching it, there is funding for it [1]. It’s a challenging thing to research.
Is it microplastics or nanoplastics or both?
How many types of plastic are there, half a dozen? What type of plastic do you want to test, what about multiple plastics in different proportions?
It can be difficult to identify mechanisms behind adverse reactions to more obvious stressors, let alone something like this which appears more chronic, long-term, and insidious.
> How many types of plastic are there, half a dozen?
Several dozen major ones, starting at cellulose.
And before you think I'm missing the point: Well, no, cellulose didn't biodegrade for what IIRC several hundred million years. That's why there's no such coal.
Because there is no apparent acute symptom of microplastic contamination inside our bodies that have been identified yet. If microplastics have even a fraction of the harm of actual carcinogens like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (which can lodge in DNA strands), we'd be witnessing mass illness events already.
That's too optimistic to be point of being naive, substances in general only cause damage above certain threshold, so there is high possibility that we are not seeing widespread harm because it hasn't reached that threshold on most people.
We ARE, it's just that nobody cares (or can figure out why)
50% of men will get cancer. Autoimmune diseases become more prolific over time. Fertility has been spiraling for decades. Mental health issues are on the rise.
haven't been any studies to move beyond the point of 'maybe they cause issues'.
People don't get any engagement and media sensationalism for finding no evidence. Now that society is biased towards that instead of truth, "maybe" is the best they can do.
Actually any society captured by capital would allocate exactly the amount of money that people have the interest to allocate to the topic of microplastics either via donations from regular citizens, Philanthropists or as part of the budget of research institutions and Universities. And it is probably the most capitalistic societies the ones that can raise the funds to finance this type of research. In this case, by the University of Nee Mexico in the US.
There are studies on microplastic toxicity already. These are linked directly in the OP article:
Even at low concentrations (1–30 µg/ml), photoaged microspheres at 1 and 5 µm in diameter exerted more pronounced biological responses in the A549 cells than was caused by pristine microspheres. High-content imaging analysis revealed S and G2 cell cycle accumulation and morphological changes, which were also more pronounced in A549 cells treated with photoaged microspheres, and further influenced by the size, dose, and time of exposures. Polystyrene microspheres reduced monolayer barrier integrity and slowed regrowth in a wound healing assay in a manner dependent on dose, photoaging, and size of the microsphere. UV-photoaging generally enhanced the toxicity of polystyrene microspheres in A549 cells
Maternal exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics has been shown to result in fetal growth restriction in mice. [...] Maternal exposure to both microplastics and nanoplastics resulted in evidence of placental dysfunction that was highly dependent on the particle size. The umbilical artery blood flow increased by 48% in the microplastic-exposed group and decreased by 25% in the nanoplastic-exposed group compared to controls (p < 0.05). The microplastic- and nanoplastic-exposed fetuses showed a significant decrease in the middle cerebral artery pulsatility index of 10% and 13%, respectively, compared to controls (p < 0.05), indicating vasodilation of the cerebral circulation, a fetal adaptation that is part of the brain sparing response to preserve oxygen delivery. Hemodynamic markers of placental dysfunction and fetal hypoxia were more pronounced in the group exposed to polystyrene nanoplastics, suggesting nanoplastic exposure during human pregnancy has the potential to disrupt fetal brain development, which in turn may cause suboptimal neurodevelopmental outcomes.
PS-MPs can decrease transepithelial electrical resistance by depleting zonula occludens proteins. Indeed, decreased α1-antitrypsin levels in BEAS-2B cells suggest that exposure to PS-MPs increases the risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and high concentrations of PS-MPs can induce these adverse responses. While low PS-MP levels can only disrupt the protective pulmonary barrier, they may also increase the risk for lung disease. Collectively, our findings indicate that PS-MP inhalation may influence human respiratory health.
> The ubiquitous presence of plastics, especially polymer-derived particulates ranging from 500 micrometers in diameter down to 1 nanometer, defined as micro- and nanoplastics (MNP)
Aren't plastics by design long chains of molecules? 1 nm is like a handful of atoms at most afaik. How small do plastics get?
Yes, a carbon-carbon bond is around 0.1-0.2nm. At these scales, these "plastics" are closer to monomers than polymers.
A 10-carbon chain with its hydrogens attached can hardly be called "polyethylene"; it is a higher alkane and behaves more like wax or mineral oil than what most people would call a plastic:
> Formalin-fixed tissue samples (approximately 500mg) were digested with 10% potassium hydroxide for 3d at 40°C with intermittent manual mixing to ensure even and thorough digestion.
"you think your job is bad, kaitlyn? get a load of what dr. campen's got me doing this week!"
The scariest part for me is that there's essentially no escape from microplastics. If it turns out that they're greatly harmful, what can you really do?
I read somewhere one can donate blood plasma to reduce the levels in your blood (and give it to someone else who presumably has more immediate problems). This does nothing for the stuff in your organs not in blood but it’s something to be proactive.
Yes but the amount of plastic in use has increased dramatically. Also there’s evidence that the process of recycling plastic is what creates a lot of the problematic microplastics. We only very recently started recycling plastic.
what boggles the mind is that there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid absorbing this stuff. it's in the food, the air, the water. even if you try to filter the air or filter your water.. the filters are made from plastic!
Readit News
The only good news is that apparently the brain can clear these particles; the problem is that there is a steadily increasing amount of exposure which means that rather than clearance, there is accumulation.
Easy on the hyperbole. Let's assume that this study is correct, and everyone at median age of 50 is walking around with this level of microplastics in the stated organs. Are we all dead? Disabled? Dying? No. Our lifespans are amongst the longest in human history. I'm doing OK. How about you?
Far bigger practical concerns are that we're fat and lethargic and suffering from metabolic disease, heart disease, cancer and diabetes en masse because we eat too much. About the only thing you can do with this finding is wave your hands around and make hypothetical links to this and that (as they do in the paper), or try to claim that this is really, secretly the underlying cause of the stuff that is actually, observably killing us.
I'm not saying there's no concern here, but I am not "terrified" of this. I am actually scared of getting fat, or falling down when I get old from being weak. These are things that happen to nearly all of us.
Anyway, first rule of science: when we look for things, we find things. If you are "terrified" by everything new you find, you are applying an emotional judgment to what you see, and not being objective enough.
The notion that scientists can or should be emotionless, and that this somehow produces 'objectivity', should really be consigned to the history books. Expectation and promotion of emotional detachment leads to burn out, anxiety, unrealistic expectations, unsupportive working environments, poor judgement, dehumanising of experimental subjects, etc etc etc. See the majority medical and psychiatric science history.
I'd far prefer different terminology. Maybe 'calm' or similar. Expecting and encouraging scientists to be calm is more realistic and achievable, and doesn't deny the fundamental reality that much of human existence has an emotional component.
Panicking over microplastics in human brains is surely an entirely understandable reaction. Rather than criticising it, we can learn from it. I want my healthcare researchers to be calm but strongly motivated.
The problem with poisons is that we view them in a binary way. They're either bad, or they're not. They either hurt you, or they don't.
But in reality it doesn't always work this way. There's infinite levels of bad.
Eating off a lead plate, as the greeks did, is poisonous but certainty not deadly. Nobody was disabled.
Instead, the rich just slowly went insane over the course of their lives. Across decades, their mental state deteriorated as they grew mad. For their society, impossible to perceive. Too slow, too widespread.
Obviously we don't know the extent or even if there is anything bad about microplastics. But if there were, would we even be able to tell by the time we get there? Or would that just become life?
I don't really care about plastics, fertility or fœtus so I won't pretend I do, but if you do, maybe look into it?
Not getting fat is easy, avoiding microplastics is not. One problem affects people with a certain lifestyle, the other affects everyone (it's an environmental issue).
Also, as the article points out, the amount of microplastics accumulated in living organisms is still rising. It's something that needs more attention.
If as you claim the brain can clear out these particles, why is it terrifying? I have been asking for why microplastics are harmful and gotten a lot of great ideas but almost no studies or evidence. I guess we need to start researching the causal effects of MPs and not just how much MPs there are everywhere.
Brains were 0.5% plastic by weight? The highest value was nearly 1% plastic.
That seems hard to believe.
The sensitivity of the GC/MS method makes me hypothesize that the stated values are massively inflated. Whatever error there was in that original measurement is probably amplified like crazy in scaling up to ug/g estimates.
How is it even getting to the brain- isn’t there a blood brain barrier that even pathogens have a hard time getting through?
> Micro- and Nanoplastics Breach the Blood–Brain Barrier (BBB): Biomolecular Corona’s Role Revealed
> The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is an important biological barrier that protects the brain from harmful substances. In our study we performed short term uptake studies in mice with orally administered polystyrene micro-/nanoparticles (9.55 µm, 1.14 µm, 0.293 µm). We show that nanometer sized particles—but not bigger particles—reach the brain within only 2 h after gavage. To understand the transport mechanism, we performed coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations on the interaction of DOPC bilayers with a polystyrene nanoparticle in the presence and absence of various coronae. We found that the composition of the biomolecular corona surrounding the plastic particles was critical for passage through the BBB. Cholesterol molecules enhanced the uptake of these contaminants into the membrane of the BBB, whereas the protein model inhibited it.
I suspected mass induced psychosis around Covid times. Now I suspect all the plastic people are consuming.
It’s not like corporations are taking plastics out into the wilderness just for fun.
https://www.newsweek.com/microplastic-map-reveals-countries-...
> When it comes to microplastic inhalation, Mongolia and China came in joint first place, with citizens of both countries inhaling more than 2.8 million microplastic particles a month. The United Kingdom came in third place, in joint place with Ireland, inhaling 791,500 particles per month. By comparison, the U.S. came in near the bottom of this list, in position 104 out of the 109 countries assessed, with only 10,500 microplastic particles inhaled per month.
Which country has the biggest stock market? US https://www.statista.com/statistics/710680/global-stock-mark...
Which country comes near last in inhalable microplastics: US
So you should be thanking shareholders if you live in the US (most are probably voters too!).
Is it microplastics or nanoplastics or both?
How many types of plastic are there, half a dozen? What type of plastic do you want to test, what about multiple plastics in different proportions?
It can be difficult to identify mechanisms behind adverse reactions to more obvious stressors, let alone something like this which appears more chronic, long-term, and insidious.
1. https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-ES-23-0...
Several dozen major ones, starting at cellulose.
And before you think I'm missing the point: Well, no, cellulose didn't biodegrade for what IIRC several hundred million years. That's why there's no such coal.
It still barely biodegrades.
We ARE, it's just that nobody cares (or can figure out why)
50% of men will get cancer. Autoimmune diseases become more prolific over time. Fertility has been spiraling for decades. Mental health issues are on the rise.
People don't get any engagement and media sensationalism for finding no evidence. Now that society is biased towards that instead of truth, "maybe" is the best they can do.
Even at low concentrations (1–30 µg/ml), photoaged microspheres at 1 and 5 µm in diameter exerted more pronounced biological responses in the A549 cells than was caused by pristine microspheres. High-content imaging analysis revealed S and G2 cell cycle accumulation and morphological changes, which were also more pronounced in A549 cells treated with photoaged microspheres, and further influenced by the size, dose, and time of exposures. Polystyrene microspheres reduced monolayer barrier integrity and slowed regrowth in a wound healing assay in a manner dependent on dose, photoaging, and size of the microsphere. UV-photoaging generally enhanced the toxicity of polystyrene microspheres in A549 cells
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10176241/
Maternal exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics has been shown to result in fetal growth restriction in mice. [...] Maternal exposure to both microplastics and nanoplastics resulted in evidence of placental dysfunction that was highly dependent on the particle size. The umbilical artery blood flow increased by 48% in the microplastic-exposed group and decreased by 25% in the nanoplastic-exposed group compared to controls (p < 0.05). The microplastic- and nanoplastic-exposed fetuses showed a significant decrease in the middle cerebral artery pulsatility index of 10% and 13%, respectively, compared to controls (p < 0.05), indicating vasodilation of the cerebral circulation, a fetal adaptation that is part of the brain sparing response to preserve oxygen delivery. Hemodynamic markers of placental dysfunction and fetal hypoxia were more pronounced in the group exposed to polystyrene nanoplastics, suggesting nanoplastic exposure during human pregnancy has the potential to disrupt fetal brain development, which in turn may cause suboptimal neurodevelopmental outcomes.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37724921/
PS-MPs can decrease transepithelial electrical resistance by depleting zonula occludens proteins. Indeed, decreased α1-antitrypsin levels in BEAS-2B cells suggest that exposure to PS-MPs increases the risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and high concentrations of PS-MPs can induce these adverse responses. While low PS-MP levels can only disrupt the protective pulmonary barrier, they may also increase the risk for lung disease. Collectively, our findings indicate that PS-MP inhalation may influence human respiratory health.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31727530/
(TL;DR; they are affecting our bodies for the worse, even as feti)
Aren't plastics by design long chains of molecules? 1 nm is like a handful of atoms at most afaik. How small do plastics get?
A 10-carbon chain with its hydrogens attached can hardly be called "polyethylene"; it is a higher alkane and behaves more like wax or mineral oil than what most people would call a plastic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_alkanes
I wonder if the PE they are finding is actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_jelly
"you think your job is bad, kaitlyn? get a load of what dr. campen's got me doing this week!"
https://www.thomassci.com/Equipment/Homogenizers/_/Polytron-...
Deleted Comment
Remember when RF was the boogeyman? Paranoia about microwave ovens and cellphones causing cancer and other illnesses?
Even the Antarctica is starting to see microplastics: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-a-first-micropl...
Monkeys with hand Grenades. Humans with plastics.