6 ms·

Plastic Found Inside More Than 50% of Plaques from Clogged Arteries

83 points by hanniabu 3y ago

lawlessone 3y ago
Well that's just terrifying.
- pier25 3y ago
  My thoughts exactly. I'd be surprised if blood tests don't include a microplastics section in the coming years.
- FallCheeta7373 3y ago
  another thing added to the list of things to worry about
- pakitan 3y ago
  Why is it terrifying? Because it's "artificial"? Would you be more at ease with something "natural" as calcium being part of the plaque? We've been living with plastics for decades. I don't see people dropping dead around me. Life expectancy around the world has been steadily growing, not the other way around. When exactly are these micro/nano plastics supposed to kill me? When I'm 90?
  - ninininino 3y ago
    Hmm, many health markers have been declining. Fertility, hormone levels, many exotic cancers incidence rates and how often they occur in young people. You may need to just look a bit harder.
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    >Why is it terrifying? Because it's "artificial"? Nope, that's not the issue, and I'll happily take every vaccine going or even a plastic artificial heart if needs be. It's terrifying because it doesn't break down. The calcium at least is more understandable.
    - pakitan 3y ago
      The calcium that's part of the plaque doesn't break down either. It stays there, despite being understandable.
cooper_ganglia 3y ago
Micro-plastics are just going to be our generation’s lead poisoning, aren’t they? :(
- skyyler 3y ago
  I fear that it's going to be much worse.
  - debacle 3y ago
    Likely, because they will be our generation's lead poisoning, but the lead is everywhere and in everything and will be around for generations to come.
- lapetitejort 3y ago
  One of many. Some other possible candidates: * Forever chemicals * Sedentary lifestyle * State sponsored disinformation campaigns * High fructose corn syrup * Long covid * Child gambling * Hyper-addictive social media Let's hope millenials and gen z can solve a few of these before it poisons generations.
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    To this list I'd like to add hyper-palatable foods and possibly chemical dependence as the pharmaceutical/supplement business convinces more and more people that the latest magic substance will fix whatever ails you. Especially when the "ailment" is modern society being difficult to exist in and SSRI drugs are the only thing that seem to keep you "functional" in said society. I say this as a Zoloft patient but there are endless supplements and drugs intended to make our lives better by some metric. "Not satisfied with life? Turn down your emotional intensity with mood stabilizers so you can continue going to your dead end job, just to barely make it every month!"
    - aodonnell2536 3y ago
      From my own personal experience and observations, I would add the mass prescription of SSRIs to the list in your comment’s parent. While it is true they _do_ help _some_ people, it seems they are very likely to cause a slew of new, long term problems for their medicatees, especially for those who are young.
skhunted 3y ago
Climate change will eventually cause us great problems but only if we survive long enough for that to happen. We are creating a toxic world. Chemicals, plastic, pollution, etc. will eventually do us great harm. There is no chance of mitigating this because profits are to be made.
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  Many of these problems don't exist in a vacuum though and some of these things are inter-related and fixing them goes hand in hand: plastics are so insanely cheap because they are sort of "waste products" of other petrochemical activities. If we shutdown some gas refineries and allow the cost of gas to go up, the costs of plastics will rise (and the markets will start buying other materials again). As a culture we collectively don't want gas prices to go up because so many people rely on internal combustion engines for daily transportation. But it should be clear that many of the funds we are using to subsidize cheap oil and gas are the same funds still subsidizing cheap plastics. (The same extends also to some of the other "toxic" chemicals polluting our environment: there are a bunch of chemicals in our economies that exist primarily to feed gas/oil refining, or as by-products of it such as working with plastics, that we'd collectively love to see a reduction in because of known harm to waterways or to soil.) A lot of people claim that they want market solutions: one of the easiest market solutions to climate change is to start by forcing gas prices to rise. Remove subsidies. Set limits on new refinery construction. Set refining limits on existing plants. We could do it slowly and in a controlled fashion and give the market time to adjust, rather than waiting for the subsidized low prices to collapse on their own (as they did fifty years back in the 1970s oil crisis) and let the market panic all at once. (We also don't have to do it in supply-side regulations if you think that's too heavy handed in manipulating the market. The old ideas of trying to bring externalities into the market more directly such as "carbon taxes" or "price ratcheting" [where once prices go above certain increments they are never allowed to drop again below those points] are still options. The point is: raise gas prices slowly somehow now [better yet, yesterday], don't wait for a bubble to burst or a crisis point to snowball.) The tools to do it today are there if we just had the willpower to try it. Many people are addicted to cheap oil and gas and will kick and scream if we tried it, though.
bornfreddy 3y ago
Interesting... How do they enter the blood in the first place?
- graphe 3y ago
  Plastic is commonly found in canned food and drink. The foods are boiled inside plastic lined containers to ensure safety. Feed is sometimes ground up human waste aka moldy bread with plastic that's been ground up that the animals eat. Here are more ways you can ingest them. https://www.earthday.org/you-are-what-you-eat-plastics-in-our-food/ https://www.earthday.org/you-are-what-you-eat-plastics-in-ou... Apples and carrots were not expected to be the most contaminated.
  - agilob 3y ago
    Also in the air from plastic clothes, carpets, furniture, wear off from car tires, smoking cigarettes...
  - bequanna 3y ago
    > feed is sometimes ground up human waste aka moldy bread with plastic that's been ground up that the animals eat. This is 100% true. Feeding animals (mostly swine) garbage is usually perfectly legal and not really regulated. They claim to strip off packaging using automated processing but they are doing this on an industrial scale and no one is really watching them.
- cperciva 3y ago
  You probably get some plastic entering your bloodstream every time you get a flu shot, just from the disposable syringe. (Yes, it's IM not IV, but it will migrate.)
- ju-st 3y ago
  See chapter 3.3 of "Discovery and quantification of plastic particle pollution in human blood" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412022001258 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...
- 3y ago
foolfoolz 3y ago
plastic is in all of us. there is no way to avoid it completely
- NDizzle 3y ago
  Live off the land, in a cabin in the woods. With Starlink and a solar / battery array.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - greenhearth 3y ago
    lol You know that it rains from the sky - https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/clouds-plastic-rain-food-contamination-b2420308.html https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/clouds-pla...
    - NDizzle 3y ago
      That is why you drink it from a spring. Let the earth filter it for you. Don't catch it with... a plastic tarp.
downrightmike 3y ago
"Following 257 patients for 34 months, the researchers found nearly 60 percent of them had measurable amounts of polyethylene in plaques pulled from their fat-thickened arteries, and 12 percent also had polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in extracted fat deposits. PVC comes in both rigid and flexible forms, and is used to make water pipes, plastic bottles, flooring, and packaging. Polyethylene is the most commonly produced plastic, used for plastic bags, films, and bottles, too."
- cperciva 3y ago
  measurable amounts Note however that chemists have gotten incredibly good at detecting tiny amounts of things, so an amount being "measurable" in no way implies that it is clinically significant.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  PVC is also used in IV bags so I wonder how much of the contamination might have come from someone's surgical drip compared to them drinking from deteriorating water pipes at home.
  - downrightmike 3y ago
    The phenomenon of bad taste or smell is explained by the mechanism of volatile substances, released from saline when injected into the bloodstream and then eliminated by the respiratory system and thus detected by the patients in the air expired by the olfactory system. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2806387/#:~:text=The%20phenomenon%20of%20bad%20taste,expired%20by%20the%20olfactory%20system https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2806387/#:~:tex....
    - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
      The only time I experienced this is when I donated blood with an Alyx machine because it centrifuges the blood to separate the red blood cells to donate a double unit of RBC for trauma victims. It gives you back your plasma with some anticlotting agent and you taste/smell/feel it in your breath lol
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jwally 3y ago
The publication itself feels inflammatory and click baity. Innuendo and "just asking questions" Some of the other headlines: >Radical Plan to Stop 'Doomsday Glacier' Melting to Cost $50 Billion >Breakthrough: Model Organs Built With Cells From Living Fetuses >Startling Exception Discovered to 200-Year-Old Law of Physics
- ortusdux 3y ago
  How is the the New England Journal of Medicine inflammatory and click baity?
  - el_don_almighty 3y ago
    <inside head> do not say covid do not say covid do not say co... </inside head>
skmurphy 3y ago
This is an observational study that found a correlation but offers no insight into any mechanism of action for why these microplastics might cause blockages. I would be cautious about leaping to conclusions.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ortusdux 3y ago
"A total of 304 patients were enrolled in the study, and 257 completed a mean (±SD) follow-up of 33.7±6.9 months. Polyethylene was detected in carotid artery plaque of 150 patients (58.4%), with a mean level of 21.7±24.5 μg per milligram of plaque; 31 patients (12.1%) also had measurable amounts of polyvinyl chloride, with a mean level of 5.2±2.4 μg per milligram of plaque." - 21.7±24.5 μg per milligram is 0% to 4.62% by weight - 5.2±2.4 μg per milligram is 0% to 0.76% by weight This means that some patients' plaque contained up to 5% plastic.
- daniel_reetz 3y ago
  The specific polymers are pretty interesting. PVC - from plumbing? It's hard to imagine other environmental sources. We're not drinking from PVC cups or eating from PVC plates. I personally would have expected to see particulates from food prep surfaces (teflon pans disintegrating during cooking) since ingestion is a likely path into the body. Polyethylene - perhaps it's polyethylene terephthalate. Basically any soda or water bottle.
  - ortusdux 3y ago
    I'd imagine that fat solubility plays a significant role, but the study describes the plastic particles as large and jagged when viewed under and SEM.
  - sillystuff 3y ago
    PEX pipe, used in most recently built houses instead of copper, is polyethylene.
csnover 3y ago
The article states that adverse events were “twice as likely”, but the abstract of the study says that the hazard ratio was 4.53 (95% CI 2.00–10.27). Can someone who is hopefully more statistically literate than me explain what seems like an obvious discrepancy here? Did they just take the lower bound of the confidence interval and report that? In searching for a non-paywalled copy of the actual study, I found that other news outlets like CNN seem to be doing the same thing.
spants 3y ago
Has anyone found the cause of the "rubbery" clots found in over 25% of the deceased peoples arteries yet? I think thats a bigger story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLl69c46JK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLl69c46JK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o20mtbsL7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o20mtbsL7Q
- pleb_nz 3y ago
  I've seen these videos on YouTube. If it's real why is nothing getting said. I'm a little confsed on whether to believe it. Would appreciate some reliable and factual source/report on this.
jbandela1 3y ago
I am not sure this is not just a marker for already damaged arteries, similar to coronary artery calcium. See https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/heart-scan/about/pac-20384686 https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/heart-scan/about... Basically, if you have high calcium in the walls of your arteries, you are at higher risk for heart attacks. But the increased calcium is just a sign of damage to the artery. We don't say that calcium causes heart disease. In the same way, already damaged arteries might be taking up more micro and nano plastics, and the presence of these in the arteries, is a sign of damage much like calcium, and not a cause. Note, that microplastics are ubiquitous in the environment, so likely everyone has been exposed to them, which supports the hypothesis that this may be a sign and the cause of the disease.
pinkmuffinere 3y ago
Many comments accurately point out that causation is not yet established. Nonetheless, having plastic inside my body really seems bad. Is there anything I can do to reduce that? My guesses: 1. Avoid fast food 2. Don’t use plastic water bottles and food packaging 3. Store leftovers in glass 4. Eat less canned food (?) Do any of those seem wrong? Any others to add?
- GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
  None of the above. The majority of microplastics come from tap water via car tire dust [0]. Reducing time spent driving, especially cycling near roads. Plastic water bottles and other food packaging aren't shedding microplastics nearly as much. Although reducing single use plastic is good for environmental reasons generally. [0] - https://e360.yale.edu/features/tire-pollution-toxic-chemicals https://e360.yale.edu/features/tire-pollution-toxic-chemical...
- Lord_Zero 3y ago
  Barely anything you do will make a difference. Nearly everything you eat is transported or packaged in plastic. Your water pipes in your house might be PEX plastic. Its probably floating through the air and were breathing it right now.
  - pinkmuffinere 3y ago
    In some ways it’s a relief if there’s little I can do to change that. Plus, I expect avoiding plastic is a micro optimization compared to eg eating healthier, keeping active, and so on.
    - jwally 3y ago
      100% this. I can't imagine anyone is going to recommend consuming more micro plastics; but as far as how to improve your overall wellbeing this is probably 15 or 16 on the list. Most people would be better off focusing on getting control of their diet, exercise, sleep, and stress before fretting over this - imho; not a doctor.

83 points by hanniabu 3y ago

lawlessone 3y ago

Well that's just terrifying.

pier25 3y ago
My thoughts exactly. I'd be surprised if blood tests don't include a microplastics section in the coming years.
FallCheeta7373 3y ago
another thing added to the list of things to worry about
pakitan 3y ago
Why is it terrifying? Because it's "artificial"? Would you be more at ease with something "natural" as calcium being part of the plaque? We've been living with plastics for decades. I don't see people dropping dead around me. Life expectancy around the world has been steadily growing, not the other way around. When exactly are these micro/nano plastics supposed to kill me? When I'm 90?
- ninininino 3y ago
  Hmm, many health markers have been declining. Fertility, hormone levels, many exotic cancers incidence rates and how often they occur in young people. You may need to just look a bit harder.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  >Why is it terrifying? Because it's "artificial"? Nope, that's not the issue, and I'll happily take every vaccine going or even a plastic artificial heart if needs be. It's terrifying because it doesn't break down. The calcium at least is more understandable.
  - pakitan 3y ago
    The calcium that's part of the plaque doesn't break down either. It stays there, despite being understandable.

cooper_ganglia 3y ago

Micro-plastics are just going to be our generation’s lead poisoning, aren’t they? :(

skyyler 3y ago
I fear that it's going to be much worse.
- debacle 3y ago
  Likely, because they will be our generation's lead poisoning, but the lead is everywhere and in everything and will be around for generations to come.
lapetitejort 3y ago
One of many. Some other possible candidates: * Forever chemicals * Sedentary lifestyle * State sponsored disinformation campaigns * High fructose corn syrup * Long covid * Child gambling * Hyper-addictive social media Let's hope millenials and gen z can solve a few of these before it poisons generations.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  To this list I'd like to add hyper-palatable foods and possibly chemical dependence as the pharmaceutical/supplement business convinces more and more people that the latest magic substance will fix whatever ails you. Especially when the "ailment" is modern society being difficult to exist in and SSRI drugs are the only thing that seem to keep you "functional" in said society. I say this as a Zoloft patient but there are endless supplements and drugs intended to make our lives better by some metric. "Not satisfied with life? Turn down your emotional intensity with mood stabilizers so you can continue going to your dead end job, just to barely make it every month!"
  - aodonnell2536 3y ago
    From my own personal experience and observations, I would add the mass prescription of SSRIs to the list in your comment’s parent. While it is true they _do_ help _some_ people, it seems they are very likely to cause a slew of new, long term problems for their medicatees, especially for those who are young.

skhunted 3y ago

Climate change will eventually cause us great problems but only if we survive long enough for that to happen. We are creating a toxic world. Chemicals, plastic, pollution, etc. will eventually do us great harm. There is no chance of mitigating this because profits are to be made.

WorldMaker 3y ago
Many of these problems don't exist in a vacuum though and some of these things are inter-related and fixing them goes hand in hand: plastics are so insanely cheap because they are sort of "waste products" of other petrochemical activities. If we shutdown some gas refineries and allow the cost of gas to go up, the costs of plastics will rise (and the markets will start buying other materials again). As a culture we collectively don't want gas prices to go up because so many people rely on internal combustion engines for daily transportation. But it should be clear that many of the funds we are using to subsidize cheap oil and gas are the same funds still subsidizing cheap plastics. (The same extends also to some of the other "toxic" chemicals polluting our environment: there are a bunch of chemicals in our economies that exist primarily to feed gas/oil refining, or as by-products of it such as working with plastics, that we'd collectively love to see a reduction in because of known harm to waterways or to soil.) A lot of people claim that they want market solutions: one of the easiest market solutions to climate change is to start by forcing gas prices to rise. Remove subsidies. Set limits on new refinery construction. Set refining limits on existing plants. We could do it slowly and in a controlled fashion and give the market time to adjust, rather than waiting for the subsidized low prices to collapse on their own (as they did fifty years back in the 1970s oil crisis) and let the market panic all at once. (We also don't have to do it in supply-side regulations if you think that's too heavy handed in manipulating the market. The old ideas of trying to bring externalities into the market more directly such as "carbon taxes" or "price ratcheting" [where once prices go above certain increments they are never allowed to drop again below those points] are still options. The point is: raise gas prices slowly somehow now [better yet, yesterday], don't wait for a bubble to burst or a crisis point to snowball.) The tools to do it today are there if we just had the willpower to try it. Many people are addicted to cheap oil and gas and will kick and scream if we tried it, though.

bornfreddy 3y ago

Interesting... How do they enter the blood in the first place?

graphe 3y ago
Plastic is commonly found in canned food and drink. The foods are boiled inside plastic lined containers to ensure safety. Feed is sometimes ground up human waste aka moldy bread with plastic that's been ground up that the animals eat. Here are more ways you can ingest them. https://www.earthday.org/you-are-what-you-eat-plastics-in-our-food/ https://www.earthday.org/you-are-what-you-eat-plastics-in-ou... Apples and carrots were not expected to be the most contaminated.
- agilob 3y ago
  Also in the air from plastic clothes, carpets, furniture, wear off from car tires, smoking cigarettes...
- bequanna 3y ago
  > feed is sometimes ground up human waste aka moldy bread with plastic that's been ground up that the animals eat. This is 100% true. Feeding animals (mostly swine) garbage is usually perfectly legal and not really regulated. They claim to strip off packaging using automated processing but they are doing this on an industrial scale and no one is really watching them.
cperciva 3y ago
You probably get some plastic entering your bloodstream every time you get a flu shot, just from the disposable syringe. (Yes, it's IM not IV, but it will migrate.)
ju-st 3y ago
See chapter 3.3 of "Discovery and quantification of plastic particle pollution in human blood" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412022001258 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...
3y ago

foolfoolz 3y ago

plastic is in all of us. there is no way to avoid it completely

NDizzle 3y ago
Live off the land, in a cabin in the woods. With Starlink and a solar / battery array.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- greenhearth 3y ago
  lol You know that it rains from the sky - https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/clouds-plastic-rain-food-contamination-b2420308.html https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/clouds-pla...
  - NDizzle 3y ago
    That is why you drink it from a spring. Let the earth filter it for you. Don't catch it with... a plastic tarp.

downrightmike 3y ago

"Following 257 patients for 34 months, the researchers found nearly 60 percent of them had measurable amounts of polyethylene in plaques pulled from their fat-thickened arteries, and 12 percent also had polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in extracted fat deposits. PVC comes in both rigid and flexible forms, and is used to make water pipes, plastic bottles, flooring, and packaging. Polyethylene is the most commonly produced plastic, used for plastic bags, films, and bottles, too."

cperciva 3y ago
measurable amounts Note however that chemists have gotten incredibly good at detecting tiny amounts of things, so an amount being "measurable" in no way implies that it is clinically significant.
I_Am_Nous 3y ago
PVC is also used in IV bags so I wonder how much of the contamination might have come from someone's surgical drip compared to them drinking from deteriorating water pipes at home.
- downrightmike 3y ago
  The phenomenon of bad taste or smell is explained by the mechanism of volatile substances, released from saline when injected into the bloodstream and then eliminated by the respiratory system and thus detected by the patients in the air expired by the olfactory system. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2806387/#:~:text=The%20phenomenon%20of%20bad%20taste,expired%20by%20the%20olfactory%20system https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2806387/#:~:tex....
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    The only time I experienced this is when I donated blood with an Alyx machine because it centrifuges the blood to separate the red blood cells to donate a double unit of RBC for trauma victims. It gives you back your plasma with some anticlotting agent and you taste/smell/feel it in your breath lol

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jwally 3y ago

The publication itself feels inflammatory and click baity. Innuendo and "just asking questions" Some of the other headlines: >Radical Plan to Stop 'Doomsday Glacier' Melting to Cost $50 Billion >Breakthrough: Model Organs Built With Cells From Living Fetuses >Startling Exception Discovered to 200-Year-Old Law of Physics

ortusdux 3y ago
How is the the New England Journal of Medicine inflammatory and click baity?
- el_don_almighty 3y ago
  <inside head> do not say covid do not say covid do not say co... </inside head>

skmurphy 3y ago

This is an observational study that found a correlation but offers no insight into any mechanism of action for why these microplastics might cause blockages. I would be cautious about leaping to conclusions.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ortusdux 3y ago

"A total of 304 patients were enrolled in the study, and 257 completed a mean (±SD) follow-up of 33.7±6.9 months. Polyethylene was detected in carotid artery plaque of 150 patients (58.4%), with a mean level of 21.7±24.5 μg per milligram of plaque; 31 patients (12.1%) also had measurable amounts of polyvinyl chloride, with a mean level of 5.2±2.4 μg per milligram of plaque." - 21.7±24.5 μg per milligram is 0% to 4.62% by weight - 5.2±2.4 μg per milligram is 0% to 0.76% by weight This means that some patients' plaque contained up to 5% plastic.

daniel_reetz 3y ago
The specific polymers are pretty interesting. PVC - from plumbing? It's hard to imagine other environmental sources. We're not drinking from PVC cups or eating from PVC plates. I personally would have expected to see particulates from food prep surfaces (teflon pans disintegrating during cooking) since ingestion is a likely path into the body. Polyethylene - perhaps it's polyethylene terephthalate. Basically any soda or water bottle.
- ortusdux 3y ago
  I'd imagine that fat solubility plays a significant role, but the study describes the plastic particles as large and jagged when viewed under and SEM.
- sillystuff 3y ago
  PEX pipe, used in most recently built houses instead of copper, is polyethylene.

csnover 3y ago

The article states that adverse events were “twice as likely”, but the abstract of the study says that the hazard ratio was 4.53 (95% CI 2.00–10.27). Can someone who is hopefully more statistically literate than me explain what seems like an obvious discrepancy here? Did they just take the lower bound of the confidence interval and report that? In searching for a non-paywalled copy of the actual study, I found that other news outlets like CNN seem to be doing the same thing.

spants 3y ago

Has anyone found the cause of the "rubbery" clots found in over 25% of the deceased peoples arteries yet? I think thats a bigger story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLl69c46JK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLl69c46JK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o20mtbsL7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o20mtbsL7Q

pleb_nz 3y ago
I've seen these videos on YouTube. If it's real why is nothing getting said. I'm a little confsed on whether to believe it. Would appreciate some reliable and factual source/report on this.

jbandela1 3y ago

I am not sure this is not just a marker for already damaged arteries, similar to coronary artery calcium. See https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/heart-scan/about/pac-20384686 https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/heart-scan/about... Basically, if you have high calcium in the walls of your arteries, you are at higher risk for heart attacks. But the increased calcium is just a sign of damage to the artery. We don't say that calcium causes heart disease. In the same way, already damaged arteries might be taking up more micro and nano plastics, and the presence of these in the arteries, is a sign of damage much like calcium, and not a cause. Note, that microplastics are ubiquitous in the environment, so likely everyone has been exposed to them, which supports the hypothesis that this may be a sign and the cause of the disease.

pinkmuffinere 3y ago

Many comments accurately point out that causation is not yet established. Nonetheless, having plastic inside my body really seems bad. Is there anything I can do to reduce that? My guesses: 1. Avoid fast food 2. Don’t use plastic water bottles and food packaging 3. Store leftovers in glass 4. Eat less canned food (?) Do any of those seem wrong? Any others to add?

GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
None of the above. The majority of microplastics come from tap water via car tire dust [0]. Reducing time spent driving, especially cycling near roads. Plastic water bottles and other food packaging aren't shedding microplastics nearly as much. Although reducing single use plastic is good for environmental reasons generally. [0] - https://e360.yale.edu/features/tire-pollution-toxic-chemicals https://e360.yale.edu/features/tire-pollution-toxic-chemical...
Lord_Zero 3y ago
Barely anything you do will make a difference. Nearly everything you eat is transported or packaged in plastic. Your water pipes in your house might be PEX plastic. Its probably floating through the air and were breathing it right now.
- pinkmuffinere 3y ago
  In some ways it’s a relief if there’s little I can do to change that. Plus, I expect avoiding plastic is a micro optimization compared to eg eating healthier, keeping active, and so on.
  - jwally 3y ago
    100% this. I can't imagine anyone is going to recommend consuming more micro plastics; but as far as how to improve your overall wellbeing this is probably 15 or 16 on the list. Most people would be better off focusing on getting control of their diet, exercise, sleep, and stress before fretting over this - imho; not a doctor.