19 ms·
New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour
- karol 3y agoI am surprised there's no mention of male fertility. It's a very viable hypothesis in my opinion.
- literalAardvark 3y agoThere's no mention of reproductive health at all. It's a neurological study with some extra data attached. "Thus, we proposed to investigate the effect that exposure to MPs has on young and old C57BL/6J mice, focusing on neurobehavioral effects, inflammatory response, as well as translocation and accumulation of MPs in tissues, including the brain".
- mborch 3y agoThere's an article in American Journal of Men's Health: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9134445/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9134445/ > In summary, semen quality in men has declined significantly over the last 80 years, with sperm concentration dropping to approximately one seventh of its original value. This timing coincides with the development of plastics. Not a bad hypothesis.
- ninkendo 3y agoTo be fair, “the last 80 years” coincides with a lot of stuff. The world has changed a lot since the 1940s. Isolating plastics as a cause and accounting for all other variables is next to impossible.
- ethanbond 3y agoWe have really great studies showing plastics disrupting fertility systems in other mammals though. This hypothesis is not formed merely from “sperm quality has declined since 1940” and “plastic use has gone up since 1940.”
- andrepd 3y agoTbf, it also coincides with the development of many other things.
- SoftTalker 3y agoAlso coincides with a rise in obesity, which is a known endocrine distruptor.
- fredrikholm 3y agoAnd correlated with decreased sperm quality and count. Considering the sheer amount of bad health outcomes that are also associated with obesity in general, it's not surprising that it also affects fertility. Question then becomes, if you adjust for obesity, how much has male fertility changed since 80 years ago?
- ethanbond 3y agoWe have lab data showing that microplastics also disrupt metabolisms. So this is not quite the escape hatch we might wish it was: we have good reason to suspect that microplastics are also contributing to obesity. (Of course this doesn't fully remove our extremely sedentary lifestyle and highly unnatural food supply either)
- fredrikholm 3y agoOh most definitely; I rather meant that it would be interesting to see just how much of a contributing factor global obesity rates have in this area.
- ekianjo 3y agoMany things have changed in the past 80 years...
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoWoah. At that rate, how long until everyone is literally infertile? 15 more years? (Yeah, I know, it might not be a linear decline. It's still shocking.)
- TexanFeller 3y agoAlso the rising prevalence of trans. Feeling like the other sex might be related to disruption of one's normal sex hormone profile.
- Rettardo 3y ago[flagged]
- some_random 3y agoTrans people make up a pretty small proportion of the population and are easily controlled for in medical studies.
- rs999gti 3y ago> no mention of male fertility. Divorce rates and video games are already helping to decline that
- nonethewiser 3y agoI looked for microplastic test services and it seems like they're all $500+. Wish it was something you could do at home. The local results are all that really matters. Would be interesting to compare bottled water vs. tap water/well water. I've heard bottled water tends to contain more.
- andai 3y agoWould you expect that in glass bottles too? Is it just in the water supply?
- nonethewiser 3y agoI'm not sure but maybe to some degree? I have seen that recommended but I find it hard to believe the contamination source is the bottle itself. I figured it was from water source that was more concentrated with microplastic pollution. Which I assume happens more from plastics degrading in the environment over a long time, not simply water touching it in a controlled environment for a few months.
- huthuthike 3y agoWhy do find it hard to believe that plastic in contact with water could result in microplastics contaminating the water?
- 1337biz 3y agoI would be interested in this too. Also from my laymen understanding it should be not that hard to develop filters for at least larger particles. Or is that too simple thought out?
- goda90 3y agoIt's the smaller particles that get into cells and cause the most harm unfortunately.
- NotGMan 3y ago
- vouaobrasil 3y agoFrom the actual paper: "With this in mind, an in vivo study was designed to determine the effects of these MPs [microplastics] in a rodent model (Figure 2A). Following a 3-week exposure to PS-MPs, C57BL/6J mice were tested in a series of behavioral assays including the open-field and light–dark preference tests. Both assays showed significant changes in parameters such as distance traveled, rearing activity, and duration in the center between the control and the exposed groups for both old and young mice (Figure 3 and Figure 4). Overall, these changes seemed to be more pronounced in older animals, which may be due to age-related dysfunction exasperating the effects of the PS-MPs on behavioral performance (Figure 3D,H,L and Figure 4D,F). The behavioral changes exhibited by the young mice, however, suggest that even without increased age as a co-variable, PS-MPs can induce altered behavior in rodents after just 3 weeks of exposure (Figure 3B,F,J and Figure 4C,E)." Rather scary if you ask me...slight behaviour changes in a massive global population such as humans can cause us to make societal level mistakes that could be fatal.
- m_a_g 3y agoThis is the third time this week I've seen a study related to microplastics. Should I be alarmed? If so, what can I even do? If I'm understanding these studies correctly, these microplastics are everywhere. In our bodies, in our water supplies, in our food. And we can't even get rid of them.
- literalAardvark 3y agoWe can reduce the ingested quantity. That's about all.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wendyshu 3y agoDoes most of the microplastic we ingest come from household plastics or from the environment?
- nonethewiser 3y agoThese are great questions. I think it's impossible to say for sure. It is at once a real problem (because they exist and cause problems) and a boogeyman because you never really know where they are and how much is going to be a problem for you. So be completely apathetic. Or always be afraid of everything and perform some purity rituals that give you some peace of mind despite not really knowing anything. Like drinking bottled water only despite that maybe having more, or installing expensive filtration systems without testing before or after for the existence of microplastics or effectiveness of the filter. Or telling your kid not to drink certain water because its not safe, despite having no actual knowledge of any risk. Obviously we should continue to gather more information and remediate what we can but I think there is also a problem with fear-based behavior that just spreads anxiety baselessly.
- Semaphor 3y agoI mean, some things will reduce your plastic exposure without requiring measurements. Glass containers, metal bowls, no non-stick pans. That still leaves open if that results in different health outcomes, but it’s still something you can do without having high-tech measurement devices.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zo1 3y agoI think micro-plastics and "forever" chemicals will be our generation's asbestos/cigarettes controversy.
- andric 3y agoAnd Long COVID is shaping up to be our generation’s HIV/AIDS. History rhymes because people don’t ever learn. We deal with one problem or crisis at a time, instead of generalizing what was learned in order to help future generations avoid the same mistakes.
- artursapek 3y agoAre you seriously comparing AIDS to “long COVID”?
- andric 3y agoBoth AIDS and Long COVID are post-viral, multi-organ, chronic conditions that dysregulate the immune system, through many of the same mechanisms [0]. They are also conditions that severely affects the quality of life of those who are afflicted, increasing the risk of severe life-threatening illnesses [1]. Similar to the early years of the AIDS pandemic (which, I might add, is still ongoing), the harms of Long COVID are not widely understood or acknowledged in clinical practice or among the general population. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9608044/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9608044/ [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2
- local_person 3y ago[dead]
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- fingting 3y ago[flagged]
- trident5000 3y agoI bought a tub of BCAA powder from Ghost and was horrified after finding a large spidery plastic blob buried in there. I went to Burger King and looked inside the burger randomly which I never do and found plastic. Theres a microplastic issue but theres also a large plastic issue in food. Often times you do even notice when you eat it.
- wendyshu 3y agoThere was plastic in the burger?
- trident5000 3y agoYep, it looked like it was from an ingredients bag that was cut open. Thats my best guess.
- fingting 3y ago[flagged]
- trident5000 3y agoVery sure. I took my sweet time inspecting it and then just about puked before tossing that trash. Never ate there again. The burger was disgusting aside from the plastic as well which was the only reason I even inspected it in the first place.
- dubcanada 3y agoWhy would you look inside a burger? And how do you know it was "plastic"?
- trident5000 3y agoIt was disgusting with too much sauce so I looked. How do I know it was plastic...because I have eyes and it was plastic.
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- starfallg 3y agoThere's way more to it than at first glance. It seems that the figures thrown about in term of sperm counts are not at all conclusive - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-sperm-counts-really-declining/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-sperm-counts-...
- njovin 3y agoI'm still shocked that there hasn't been more of a regulatory push to eliminate single-use plastics. In the US the closest we've gotten is banning plastic straws and charging for plastic carry bags. Everything I've read about plastic recycling points to it being ineffective and requiring massive amounts of fossil fuel to move the waste around the globe, often with much of it just getting burned or dumped into the environment anyway. Despite that, the aisles of grocery stores are still packed full of single-use plastic bottles, containers, wrappers, etc. Are any countries making a legitimate effort to drastically reduce the use of plastics? It seems like we had a pretty good system years ago in requiring people to leave a deposit for bottles when purchasing beer or pop to incentivize return + reuse.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago> I'm still shocked that there hasn't been more of a regulatory push to eliminate single-use plastics. I'm not- show me the direct harm it is causing on an individual level. We can all agree they are a nuisance but it is hard to show how they are outright harming people. Studies like this are a step towards that proof.
- ethanbond 3y agoIdeally, governments armed with scientists are capable of making key judgments like this one without “my child’s arm fell off” levels of apparent, individual harm.
- superhumanuser 3y agoScientists are wrong... a lot. The harm should be obvious to the layman IMHO in order to be legislated away. Otherwise, it should be left up to personal choice.
- ethanbond 3y agoThis is an absolutely horrible heuristic. Let’s put radioactive toys, toys painted with lead, leaded gasoline, DDT, and thalidomide back on the market. None of these were “obvious to the layman.” Individual scientists are wrong a lot. Science as a process continues to be the (imperfect) reigning world champ of truth discovery, no matter what contrarianism du jour memes are spreading over the internet.
- enbugger 3y agoMicroplastics - Yet another narrative to milk money from middle class Americans. Refer to the top comments for the prove
- shlant 3y agohow do you determine the difference between a "narrative" that is a true reflection of reality and a "narrative" that is to "milk money from middle class Americans"?
- lasermike026 3y agoLet's get to the point. Plastics are toxic waste.
- smallerfish 3y ago> ‘water, seafood, consumer products (clothes, toothpaste, salt, sugar, honey, beer, anything stored in plastic bottles, plastic wrap, or cans/cartons lined with plastic), and via inhalation from textiles, synthetic rubber tires, and plastic covers’ How true is this? How do microplastics end up in honey, for example? And I thought plastic bottles/wrap etc were stable in the lifespan that they're used for food storage (BPA aside) - is this really claiming that plastic starts to fall apart from the get-go?
- myshpa 3y ago> is this really claiming that plastic starts to fall apart from the get-go Yes. Microplastics are everywhere. Everywhere on the planet we look, we find microplastics. Just ... everywhere. Beekeepers are using plastic worker brood foundations, for example. Honey is often stored in plastic buckets and bottles, somewhere in the production process/transport. And it's not just the honey. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/08/microplastics-detected-in-meat-milk-and-blood-of-farm-animals https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/08/micropla... Microplastics detected in meat, milk and blood of farm animals https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press/single-view/arktische-eisalgen-stark-mit-mikroplastik-belastet.html https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press/single-view/ark... Arctic ice algae heavily contaminated with microplastics https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/microplastics-found-in-human-blood-for-first-time https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/micropla... Microplastics found in human blood for first time https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/microplastics-found-90-percent-table-salt-sea-salt https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro... Microplastics found in 90 percent of table salt https://phys.org/news/2020-03-plastic-bags-bottles-microplastics.html https://phys.org/news/2020-03-plastic-bags-bottles-microplas... Opening plastic bags and bottles may generate microplastics https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/microplastics-pollution-falls-from-air-even-mountains https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro... Microplastics are raining down from the sky https://www.sciencenews.org/article/plastics-remote-places-microplastics-earth-mount-everest https://www.sciencenews.org/article/plastics-remote-places-m... Plastics are showing up in the world’s most remote places, including Mount Everest
- bhouston 3y agoThere are two macro population health trends that suggest we are somehow poisoning ourselves at a large scale. Most people do not relate the two, but I personally wouldn't be surprised if they have related causes. The first is the Flynn effect, which was rising IQ levels decade over decade, which halted and then reserved for most Western nations around 1990s/2000s and is now declining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect The second is the dropping fertility/sperm counts/hormone issues/etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_infertility_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_infertility_crisis I think microplastics along with forever chemicals/PFAS are two of the likely culprits and are probably fairly easy to deal with. I wonder what else could be contributing?
- hotstickyballs 3y ago[flagged]
- xdavidliu 3y agoi don’t think evolution works that fast; the only thing that fast would be something like selective breeding for dogs, but thats intentional; the type of evolution you’re talking about is more on the order of 10^6 years
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoEvolution is working every single generation. Dogs no more or less than humans or anything else. Dogs were selected, but everything responds to environmental pressures. All the time. Natural ones no different than human-provided ones, right? And humans have changed more in the last 50K years than in the 1M before that. Because of civilization I have to think. Anyway, off by 2 orders of magnitude there, for really significant changes.
- xdavidliu 3y agoi’m not saying the effect is zero; im saying the effect is clearly too small; there are obviously degrees to this. halving of overall hormone levels are surely not explained by a measly three generations of improved health care removing the selective pressure in favor of the survival of high-hormone humans
- gcau 3y agoI think we really need a big and aggressive government response to this issue, possibly more important than climate change.
- myshpa 3y agoClimate change is just one symptom of the overshoot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries#Nine_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries#Nine_boun... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot Biodiversity loss is the worst of them all.
- badcarbine 3y agoAt this point citizens owe the government nothing for allowing this to happen. Not even taxes! Every social problem from mass shootings to homelessness might as well be attributed to Microplastics or some form of other pollutant.
- Blair1 3y ago[flagged]
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoWe got the gayest frogs that you ever did meet
- registeredcorn 3y agoI can't help but feel that a website named sustainable plastics might have an ulterior motive for criticizing current plastic usage. This isn't to say that current plastics are somehow good, but rather that, perhaps the people talking about the best ways to fight fires ought not be the fellows with a vested interest in fire extinguisher sales.
- wiradikusuma 3y agoI live in a country where, despite 70% water (I know, seawater) and lots of rainforests, most urban people drink bottled water (single-use and refills). Talk about selling ice to Eskimos. Probably because the ice outside is polluted, and it's easier to buy instead of fixing the root cause. Anyway, ignoring the effect on nature since we clearly don't care about it, how damaging would the effect be to people who consume water that way, daily?
- achenet 3y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9103198/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9103198/ bottled water actually has more microplastics than tap water (although both have some).
- myshpa 3y agohttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/08/230816114128.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/08/230816114128.h... Oceans release microplastics into the atmosphere
- blueridge 3y agoI know it's probably bad for me and that I need to stop, but I love sous vide meat. Especially steak—it's perfect every time.
- huthuthike 3y agoGet reusable silicone bags. Most sources say they don't release microplastics. I'm not sure how well studied that is but my hunch is they probably aren't as bad as using a ziplock bag.
- some_random 3y agoThere are several options for consumer priced steam injection ovens, I have one from Anova but there are other options too, and they can do sous vide to a degree without using a plastic bag.
- userbinator 3y agoOne of the biggest reason plastics are used is because they're inert. in this case, fluorescent polystyrene particles Did they neglect any effects of the fluorescent dye instead? The fact that plastics are everywhere, and we have been exposed to them for several generations, should be seen as evidence of their harmlessness; we would've seen many obvious effects if they weren't. I see this as very similar to the sometimes argued link between cellphone radiation (or RF in general) and cancer. This is simply more fearmongering from those who stand the most to profit from it...
- darajava 3y agoSure, but what about the more slight effects? A 2-point general decline in IQ is a huge problem, but not obvious. I am wary of any “bogeyman” that we are told to be worried about, in this case, the pervasiveness of plastic does actually worry me. Hopefully i’m wrong
- kjkjadksj 3y agoCorrelation does not equate causation. Maybe IQ has gone down because a lot of people literally do not give themselves time to think at all. Every free moment the phone is open dumping junk food tier information into their head. The mind didn’t evolve to be inundated by tick tocks while you pee. Its supposed to wander and be bored.
- creole_wither 3y agoOr maybe people are dumping junk food tier information into their heads because their IQs are lower.
- xyst 3y agoMicroplastics is the lead paint exposure of the current and past 2 generations. This article cites synthetic rubber from tires as a potential source of micro plastics. Are there any studies that show how much people are exposed to? Comparisons between rubber from bikes, motorcycles, and different classes of motor vehicles (sedans/cars, trucks, heavy duty trucks or machinery, and even the subclass of EVs). Even more of a reason to get away from car centric transportation if the levels are several orders of magnitude difference.
- bhouston 3y agoI think that the main source is motor vehicles, both cars, trucks and heavy duty trucks and maybe motorcycles if you have enough of them (which we do not in North America.) https://www.plasticstoday.com/medical/tire-wear-major-source-microplastics-say-researchers https://www.plasticstoday.com/medical/tire-wear-major-source...
- tegmark 3y agowhere is the chorus of people saying “…in mice?” it goes to show that this comment is used to beat down ideas that they decided they dont like long before reading anything. but for microplastics, which is exactly the kind of politically charged junk food they love, there is no chorus of “in mice.” anyway, how is it crossing the blood brain barrier? dubious. lots of things can cause change in behaviour through inflammation. cows milk for example. the solution to this and microplastics and a huge number of diseases will be gaining control of inflammation and metabolism. at the moment we dont even understand how they work.
- darajava 3y agoWhy do you think necessarily that this is junk food? Fair that there is no chorus, but what is the problem using mice in an experiment? I mean, it’s done for a reason, right?
- modzu 3y agopfas are banned except for food products (water resistant packaging and nonstick coatings) wtffff
- skizm 3y agoAre there any lifestyle changes someone could make to limit or remove the intake of microplastics?
- berniedurfee 3y agoI’ve been saying it for a while now and am unfortunately feeling more confident. Microplastics are the next lead emissions style issue that’ll end up being linked to widespread socio-behavioral decline and health issues. Except it’ll be worse due to the far more prevalent and widespread use of plastics. It’ll be as if we used lead to make _everything_ and then found out lead is bad.