Plastic appears more poisonous than you think, especially to your brain. You’d rather know these findings than not.
I try to avoid just quoting news. That’s for social media, which I avoid. But sometimes the news merits it. Quoting the Washington Post:
Our brains are filling with more and more microplastics, study shows
A new study shows that microplastics have crossed the blood-brain barrier — and that their concentrations are rising.
A new study shows that microplastics are making their way into human brains — with potentially dangerous effects onpeople’s health andmental acuity.
A paper published Monday in Nature Medicine found that the tiny fragments of plastic are passing the blood-brain barrier and into human brains, and the amount of microplastics in the brain appears to be increasing over time. The concentration of microplastics in analyzed brains rose by about 50 percent from 2016 to 2024.
The scientists also examined the brains of 12 deceased patients diagnosed with dementia, and found that they had three to five times as much microplastics as normal brains.
“Every time we scratch the surface, it uncovers a whole host of, ‘Oh, is this worse than we thought?’” one of the paper’s lead authors, University of New Mexico toxicology professor Matthew Campen, said in an interview about an earlier version of the paper.
Haven’t shown causation (yet)
The original paper’s conclusion points out they’ve only shown correlation, not causation, though not showing it doesn’t mean it isn’t there:
The present data suggest a trend of increasing MNP concentrations in the brain and liver. The majority of MNPs [microplastics and nanoplastics] found in tissues consist of PE and appear to be nanoplastic shards or flakes. MNP concentrations in normal decedent brain samples were 7–30 times greater than the concentrations seen in livers or kidneys, and brain samples from dementia cases exhibited even greater MNP presence. These data are associative and do not establish a causal role for such particles affecting health. For this, refinements to the analytical techniques, more complex study designs and much larger cohorts are needed. Given the exponentially rising environmental presence of MNPs, these data compel a much larger effort to understand whether MNPs have a role in neurological disorders or other human health effects.
We can use much less plastic. In time we can get back to zero.
Results like this are why I share that I take years to fill a load of trash. Most of my trash was food and doof packaging. As hard as it was to change my shopping habits and as addicted as I was to doof, over the years I’ve gotten to where I haven’t filled a load of trash since 2019 and rarely buy doof or packaged food.
Yes, it can look hard. It can seem impossible. It can feel like some people can’t do it. I thought those things too.
Nothing beats hands-on, personal, practical experience for busting myths.
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