8 ms·

Evidence suggests microplastics in water pose ‘minimal health risk’

onetimemanytime 7y ago
Personally I think that in the coming decades we'll find out that something that made our life "easier" also brought us higher cancer rates, autism, diabetes etc etc. Life is a trade-off, but as time goes we'll have to choose the lesser evil. Oh, and I am not rushing to buy early studies...time will tell.
- bhaak 7y ago
  Are there any unknowns for the causes of higher cancer rates, autism, diabetes? I'm with you in regards to allergies, though.
  - alexandercrohde 7y ago
    There are unknowns for autism, high cancer rates, autoimmune disorders, near-sightedness
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    I grew up on an acreage, drinking well water in the 80s - I doubt it was contaminated by micro-plastics. We had animals of all sorts. I still have brutal allergies - the irony being that the things I was exposed to the most (we kept horses) is the thing I'm most allergic to.
    - israel-oliveira 7y ago
      Pregnant woman feeds in such a way that develops propensity to diabetes in the baby. Certain exposures to food, bacteria, fungi, protozoa make us hypersensitive to these or other microbes over time. Your situation with the horses is curious. It may or may not be caused by genetics, I imagine you have already thought about it a lot.
  - psychrometer 7y ago
    I think the increase in allergies is due to children not being exposed to allergens. It used to be the advice to not feed your child foods that are commonly allergenic but now the advice is reversed. https://www.livescience.com/57383-peanut-allergy-prevention-guidelines.html https://www.livescience.com/57383-peanut-allergy-prevention-...
- hypfer 7y ago
  Can't believe you've added autism to this list.
  - onetimemanytime 7y ago
    You think it was always there but autistic kids then were labeled "crazy" or weird? I strongly believe that our hormones and system can be affected by outside things such as pollution (any kind of it)
    - honestoHeminway 7y ago
      Eh, no they where quite literally used as human automation. Shove them into the factory..
    - FrankyHollywood 7y ago
      Why is nobody talking about the fact that kids mis a lot of real-life playing outside in the dirt, and sitting behind a screen... on average 6 hours a day. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32067158 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32067158 Perhaps because it's the easy way, just blame some chemical instead of taking action. If you move to a friendly neighbourhood and have some rules about screentime kids play outside, I know from experience with my own kids. I'm no expert, but I suspect a strong correlation in autism development and 'hours spend in front of a screen instead of playing outside with peers'.
      - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        > If you move to a friendly neighbourhood Everyone out of the inner city! > I'm no expert, but I suspect a strong correlation in autism development and 'hours spend in front of a screen instead of playing outside with peers'. Autism is usually diagnosed at 24 to 36 months - you're saying that the toddlers are playing too many video games and not spending enough time building treeforts?
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Not all autism is the typical HN "autism is my superpower" meme. For many it is a serious struggle.
- Spoppys 7y ago
  Autism rates are stable, and only appear to be increasing due to better diagnosis. Cancer rates are increasing due to people living longer and cancer being more common the older you are. Diabetes is up due to obesity being up.
  - paganel 7y ago
    > Cancer rates are increasing due to people living longer and cancer being more common the older you are. Then we should just compare cancer rates for people age 20-to-40 who live nowadays to cancer rates for people with the same age from, I don't know, 100 years ago? Or, better yet, compare this to people who don't live in an industrial society like ours.
  - bencollier49 7y ago
    > Autism rates are stable, and only appear to be increasing due to better diagnosis. Citation? "Several large studies have suggested that autism rates have risen steadily in the last 20 years, but this new report suggests that rates may be leveling off. The ADDM Network’s estimated rates also plateaued between 2010 and 2012 (after increasing roughly 123% between 2002 and 2010), but then jumped 30% from 2012 to 2014." The paper goes on to mention both measurement and environmental factors as potential causes.
    - Aloha 7y ago
      People who just a generation ago would have just been classified as weird are now given an actual diagnosis.
    - klmr 7y ago
      > Citation? I’ll refer you to the discussion on Wikipedia [1], which is fairly exhaustive. The long and the short of it is that we don’t know for certain either way, and all estimates have large uncertainties attached. However, the (tentative) prevalent opinion amongst experts can be fairly summarised as “The reported increase is largely attributable to changes in diagnostic practices, referral patterns, availability of services, age at diagnosis, and public awareness”. However, it also needs to be said that “largely” here refers to the effect size: most of the increase is probably not due to actually increased incidence. But some of it probably is. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism#Changes_with_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism#Changes...
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  It also brought us longer lifespan?
- jacknews 7y ago
  it's not just about "us"
vfc1 7y ago
It's hard to believe that. The cancer rates in wildlife have been increasing for a reason, and it can only be explained by pollution in general (not micro-plastics in particular). The problem is not the microplastics themselves, but the fact that plastic is a very effective sponge for absorbing all sorts of persistent pollutants. It's even used to collect pollutant samples, due to its huge absorption properties. It can't be good that's for sure, and in many cases, it's being overused. I'm all for forbidding the use of plastic in many common use cases. My local supermarket sells packs of 4 peaches in a plastic container, wrapped in a plastic sheet. I always have to take the trash out after grocery shopping, due to all the discarded packages, come on it's ridiculous.
- gus_massa 7y ago
  > The cancer rates in wildlife have been increasing Do you have a source for that? It looks difficult to measure, and also most wild species are shortlive so the incidence of cancer is smaller.
  - vfc1 7y ago
    Have a look here for wildlife - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cancer-wildlife-environmental-contaminant/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cancer-wildlife-e... If I remember well the same is happening to urban animals.
    - gus_massa 7y ago
      It's a very interesting article. I found the research article that has more details: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240769/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240769/ (I hope it's the correct one.) They study belugas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beluga_whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beluga_whale that have a long life so cancer is a threat. They found that they got more cancer that other cetacean. I don't understand the comparison in table 3, because IIUC spotted dolphins have even more cancer, but not the same kind of cancer. They don't compare to the rate of the same animal in other places or before the smelter plants were created. It looks convincing, but it seams to be a case where there is a contaminated area and an animal that has a long life. I'm not convinced that this is a general trend for all wildlife.
vwcx 7y ago
I think we're all getting comfortable with the idea that humans are now regularly ingesting and breathing microplastic particulate matter, AND that we're not dying from the chemical accumulation of these particles. But that doesn't negate what marine biologists are pointing out with more urgency: that at the smallest end of the food chain, these particulates are being mistaken as food, with consequences yet unknown. More: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/05/microplastics-impact-on-fish-shown-in-pictures/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/05/micropla...
- RyanAF7 7y ago
  It's that damn straw lobby that's driven is to this point.
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    Big Straw?
- pulse7 7y ago
  "...we're not dying from the chemical accumulation of these particles" Can you provide more evidence for this statement? National Geographic writes only: "We haven’t yet seen the consequences" and there is a huge step from "we haven’t yet seen consequences" to "we're not dying... of these particles"...
  - joshgel 7y ago
    Yes. See how long it took for lung cancer after smoking to be realized as a problem. https://images.app.goo.gl/UP5gfr4DBnKq7GvD7 https://images.app.goo.gl/UP5gfr4DBnKq7GvD7
- devoply 7y ago
  In other news plastics often mimic estrogen and sperm count down all over the world drastically. Plastics need to be simply banned or highly regulated, and we should also worry about nano particles invading our environment uncontrollably. We have alternatives and the massive corporations that peddle most of the food and drink around the world is more than capable of affording to switch to better alternatives even if it costs them some of their profit.
freebear 7y ago
https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/brain-damage-in-fish-affected-by-plastic-nanoparticles https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/brain-damage-in-fis... Minimal health risk...
- FrankyHollywood 7y ago
  some day doctors will tell you all about the great health benefits of inhaling nano-plastics! :) http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/subtheme.php?token=fm_mt001.php http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/subtheme.php?token=...
- psychrometer 7y ago
  Humans are not fish.
  - fredoliveira 7y ago
    Quick reminder that even though we are not fish, it is an important part of the food chain.
    - psychrometer 7y ago
      The OP is about the health affects of microplastics on humans.
      - fredoliveira 7y ago
        Those which will eventually get to us because we eat fish, you mean?
jacknews 7y ago
... to humans. directly. EDIT: (because i don't want to offer a second chance): are you guys that are down-voting me (a few already) not aware of Schopenhauer? There is clear evidence of impact in the environment from microplastics.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
gingabriska 7y ago
How effectively we can seperate microplastics? Yesterday I was playing around with some PTFE nanopowder and mixed it with achohol and applied it on my mountain bike chain. I am wondering if I throw this powder in river, are water cleaning units able to remove nano particles from the water? Not that I am going to do this, just curious.
- mc32 7y ago
  I think that depends on size. Some systems remove the larger nano particles but are not yet capable of removing the smaller ones. Here are some numbers: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2017/ra/c7ra05690g https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2017/ra/c7ra0569...
- xzvXSvz 7y ago
  If your filter is fine enough, sure. But then you force higher energy costs to clean the water. "Not that I am going to do this," Sure, but eventually you'll wash your chain, and reapply the powder. So the particles end up in the river anyway. If you're interested, read up on how PTFE is produced. Specifically the case in WV and Ohio with DuPont's precursor PTFE plant.
  - gingabriska 7y ago
    Unfortunately you are right. But what can be done? There are dry PTFE lubricants available in market and they work so well compared to traditional Grease in dusty environment that I don't see people giving up these.
    - whenchamenia 7y ago
      Try spray wax. Works amazing on my motorcycle chains, and doesnt fling off or collect tons of dirt. That said, motor oil with a brush, wipe it off, ignore dirt between oilings was shown to be the best for motorcycle chains, not sure about sprockets.
MrSlovenia 7y ago
Better question: are we willing to risk it just because some who-know-how-much-p-hacked study said so?
- Barrin92 7y ago
  to play devil's advocate, yes. people expose themselves voluntarily to significantly more direct and harmful pollution every year by moving into urban areas. The economic trade-off of eliminating all the goods that these plastics are part of would probably find little acceptance
rinchik 7y ago
I think it depends on the source and the quantity "consumed", dihydrogen monoxide is also harmless in moderate quantities, but extremely dangerous if it's not sourced properly or "overused" or if a person has an exposure longer than 5 min while submerged.

Personally I think that in the coming decades we'll find out that something that made our life "easier" also brought us higher cancer rates, autism, diabetes etc etc. Life is a trade-off, but as time goes we'll have to choose the lesser evil. Oh, and I am not rushing to buy early studies...time will tell.

bhaak 7y ago
Are there any unknowns for the causes of higher cancer rates, autism, diabetes? I'm with you in regards to allergies, though.
- alexandercrohde 7y ago
  There are unknowns for autism, high cancer rates, autoimmune disorders, near-sightedness
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  I grew up on an acreage, drinking well water in the 80s - I doubt it was contaminated by micro-plastics. We had animals of all sorts. I still have brutal allergies - the irony being that the things I was exposed to the most (we kept horses) is the thing I'm most allergic to.
  - israel-oliveira 7y ago
    Pregnant woman feeds in such a way that develops propensity to diabetes in the baby. Certain exposures to food, bacteria, fungi, protozoa make us hypersensitive to these or other microbes over time. Your situation with the horses is curious. It may or may not be caused by genetics, I imagine you have already thought about it a lot.
- psychrometer 7y ago
  I think the increase in allergies is due to children not being exposed to allergens. It used to be the advice to not feed your child foods that are commonly allergenic but now the advice is reversed. https://www.livescience.com/57383-peanut-allergy-prevention-guidelines.html https://www.livescience.com/57383-peanut-allergy-prevention-...
hypfer 7y ago
Can't believe you've added autism to this list.
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  You think it was always there but autistic kids then were labeled "crazy" or weird? I strongly believe that our hormones and system can be affected by outside things such as pollution (any kind of it)
  - honestoHeminway 7y ago
    Eh, no they where quite literally used as human automation. Shove them into the factory..
  - FrankyHollywood 7y ago
    Why is nobody talking about the fact that kids mis a lot of real-life playing outside in the dirt, and sitting behind a screen... on average 6 hours a day. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32067158 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32067158 Perhaps because it's the easy way, just blame some chemical instead of taking action. If you move to a friendly neighbourhood and have some rules about screentime kids play outside, I know from experience with my own kids. I'm no expert, but I suspect a strong correlation in autism development and 'hours spend in front of a screen instead of playing outside with peers'.
    - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      > If you move to a friendly neighbourhood Everyone out of the inner city! > I'm no expert, but I suspect a strong correlation in autism development and 'hours spend in front of a screen instead of playing outside with peers'. Autism is usually diagnosed at 24 to 36 months - you're saying that the toddlers are playing too many video games and not spending enough time building treeforts?
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Not all autism is the typical HN "autism is my superpower" meme. For many it is a serious struggle.
Spoppys 7y ago
Autism rates are stable, and only appear to be increasing due to better diagnosis. Cancer rates are increasing due to people living longer and cancer being more common the older you are. Diabetes is up due to obesity being up.
- paganel 7y ago
  > Cancer rates are increasing due to people living longer and cancer being more common the older you are. Then we should just compare cancer rates for people age 20-to-40 who live nowadays to cancer rates for people with the same age from, I don't know, 100 years ago? Or, better yet, compare this to people who don't live in an industrial society like ours.
- bencollier49 7y ago
  > Autism rates are stable, and only appear to be increasing due to better diagnosis. Citation? "Several large studies have suggested that autism rates have risen steadily in the last 20 years, but this new report suggests that rates may be leveling off. The ADDM Network’s estimated rates also plateaued between 2010 and 2012 (after increasing roughly 123% between 2002 and 2010), but then jumped 30% from 2012 to 2014." The paper goes on to mention both measurement and environmental factors as potential causes.
  - Aloha 7y ago
    People who just a generation ago would have just been classified as weird are now given an actual diagnosis.
  - klmr 7y ago
    > Citation? I’ll refer you to the discussion on Wikipedia [1], which is fairly exhaustive. The long and the short of it is that we don’t know for certain either way, and all estimates have large uncertainties attached. However, the (tentative) prevalent opinion amongst experts can be fairly summarised as “The reported increase is largely attributable to changes in diagnostic practices, referral patterns, availability of services, age at diagnosis, and public awareness”. However, it also needs to be said that “largely” here refers to the effect size: most of the increase is probably not due to actually increased incidence. But some of it probably is. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism#Changes_with_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism#Changes...
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
It also brought us longer lifespan?
jacknews 7y ago
it's not just about "us"

vfc1 7y ago

It's hard to believe that. The cancer rates in wildlife have been increasing for a reason, and it can only be explained by pollution in general (not micro-plastics in particular). The problem is not the microplastics themselves, but the fact that plastic is a very effective sponge for absorbing all sorts of persistent pollutants. It's even used to collect pollutant samples, due to its huge absorption properties. It can't be good that's for sure, and in many cases, it's being overused. I'm all for forbidding the use of plastic in many common use cases. My local supermarket sells packs of 4 peaches in a plastic container, wrapped in a plastic sheet. I always have to take the trash out after grocery shopping, due to all the discarded packages, come on it's ridiculous.

gus_massa 7y ago
> The cancer rates in wildlife have been increasing Do you have a source for that? It looks difficult to measure, and also most wild species are shortlive so the incidence of cancer is smaller.
- vfc1 7y ago
  Have a look here for wildlife - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cancer-wildlife-environmental-contaminant/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cancer-wildlife-e... If I remember well the same is happening to urban animals.
  - gus_massa 7y ago
    It's a very interesting article. I found the research article that has more details: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240769/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240769/ (I hope it's the correct one.) They study belugas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beluga_whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beluga_whale that have a long life so cancer is a threat. They found that they got more cancer that other cetacean. I don't understand the comparison in table 3, because IIUC spotted dolphins have even more cancer, but not the same kind of cancer. They don't compare to the rate of the same animal in other places or before the smelter plants were created. It looks convincing, but it seams to be a case where there is a contaminated area and an animal that has a long life. I'm not convinced that this is a general trend for all wildlife.

vwcx 7y ago

I think we're all getting comfortable with the idea that humans are now regularly ingesting and breathing microplastic particulate matter, AND that we're not dying from the chemical accumulation of these particles. But that doesn't negate what marine biologists are pointing out with more urgency: that at the smallest end of the food chain, these particulates are being mistaken as food, with consequences yet unknown. More: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/05/microplastics-impact-on-fish-shown-in-pictures/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/05/micropla...

RyanAF7 7y ago
It's that damn straw lobby that's driven is to this point.
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  Big Straw?
pulse7 7y ago
"...we're not dying from the chemical accumulation of these particles" Can you provide more evidence for this statement? National Geographic writes only: "We haven’t yet seen the consequences" and there is a huge step from "we haven’t yet seen consequences" to "we're not dying... of these particles"...
- joshgel 7y ago
  Yes. See how long it took for lung cancer after smoking to be realized as a problem. https://images.app.goo.gl/UP5gfr4DBnKq7GvD7 https://images.app.goo.gl/UP5gfr4DBnKq7GvD7
devoply 7y ago
In other news plastics often mimic estrogen and sperm count down all over the world drastically. Plastics need to be simply banned or highly regulated, and we should also worry about nano particles invading our environment uncontrollably. We have alternatives and the massive corporations that peddle most of the food and drink around the world is more than capable of affording to switch to better alternatives even if it costs them some of their profit.

freebear 7y ago

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/brain-damage-in-fish-affected-by-plastic-nanoparticles https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/brain-damage-in-fis... Minimal health risk...

FrankyHollywood 7y ago
some day doctors will tell you all about the great health benefits of inhaling nano-plastics! :) http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/subtheme.php?token=fm_mt001.php http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/subtheme.php?token=...
psychrometer 7y ago
Humans are not fish.
- fredoliveira 7y ago
  Quick reminder that even though we are not fish, it is an important part of the food chain.
  - psychrometer 7y ago
    The OP is about the health affects of microplastics on humans.
    - fredoliveira 7y ago
      Those which will eventually get to us because we eat fish, you mean?

jacknews 7y ago

... to humans. directly. EDIT: (because i don't want to offer a second chance): are you guys that are down-voting me (a few already) not aware of Schopenhauer? There is clear evidence of impact in the environment from microplastics.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

gingabriska 7y ago

How effectively we can seperate microplastics? Yesterday I was playing around with some PTFE nanopowder and mixed it with achohol and applied it on my mountain bike chain. I am wondering if I throw this powder in river, are water cleaning units able to remove nano particles from the water? Not that I am going to do this, just curious.

mc32 7y ago
I think that depends on size. Some systems remove the larger nano particles but are not yet capable of removing the smaller ones. Here are some numbers: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2017/ra/c7ra05690g https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2017/ra/c7ra0569...
xzvXSvz 7y ago
If your filter is fine enough, sure. But then you force higher energy costs to clean the water. "Not that I am going to do this," Sure, but eventually you'll wash your chain, and reapply the powder. So the particles end up in the river anyway. If you're interested, read up on how PTFE is produced. Specifically the case in WV and Ohio with DuPont's precursor PTFE plant.
- gingabriska 7y ago
  Unfortunately you are right. But what can be done? There are dry PTFE lubricants available in market and they work so well compared to traditional Grease in dusty environment that I don't see people giving up these.
  - whenchamenia 7y ago
    Try spray wax. Works amazing on my motorcycle chains, and doesnt fling off or collect tons of dirt. That said, motor oil with a brush, wipe it off, ignore dirt between oilings was shown to be the best for motorcycle chains, not sure about sprockets.

MrSlovenia 7y ago

Better question: are we willing to risk it just because some who-know-how-much-p-hacked study said so?

Barrin92 7y ago
to play devil's advocate, yes. people expose themselves voluntarily to significantly more direct and harmful pollution every year by moving into urban areas. The economic trade-off of eliminating all the goods that these plastics are part of would probably find little acceptance

rinchik 7y ago

I think it depends on the source and the quantity "consumed", dihydrogen monoxide is also harmless in moderate quantities, but extremely dangerous if it's not sourced properly or "overused" or if a person has an exposure longer than 5 min while submerged.