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There is growing evidence that there is much less to worry about on microplastics on several fronts. 1. A whole cohort of core studies have been judged to have
by reedf1 5mo ago
There is growing evidence that there is much less to worry about on microplastics on several fronts.
1. A whole cohort of core studies have been judged to have invalid methodology due to not recording baseline microplastic levels (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2411099121 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2411099121)
2. Young-onset cancers (especially colorectal cancer) which were inferred to be caused by a rise in microplastics are being linked explicitly to other mechanisms and cohorts. (https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2025.43.16_suppl.3619 https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2025.43.16_suppl.3619)
- kuerbel 5mo agoI think those papers mostly show that parts of the microplastics literature were overstated or methodologically weak, not that microplastics are harmless. The PNAS paper is a pretty good critique of contamination/baseline issues, and I agree some of the “microplastics are causing young-onset cancer” claims got ahead of the evidence. But the broader concern still exists: people are clearly exposed constantly, particles are being found in human tissue, and there are plausible mechanisms for harm. So no, there is not "much less to worry".
- reedf1 5mo agoI agree that there is not evidence to "not worry", but many explicit worries are being accounted for. Also - in terms of human tissue: "The problem is that some small molecules in the fumes derived from polyethylene and PVC can also be produced from fats in human tissue. Human samples are “digested” with chemicals to remove tissue before analysis, but if some remains the result can be false positives for MNPs. Rauert’s paper lists 18 studies that did not include consideration of the risk of such false positives." (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/microplastics-human-body-doubt https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/micropla...) and Rauert's paper (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c12599 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c12599)
- card_zero 5mo ago"Exercise induced gastrointestinal injury"!
- elric 5mo agoCan't read the full study, but it seems to be specifically about people who run ultramarathons. Which sounds like a very small subset of the general population. I doubt that tiny cohort is in any way responsible for the overall increase in bowel cancer in younger people.
- reedf1 5mo agoActually this is the shocking part - it actually is enough to move the needle. Incidents of young people with cancer is small so a 100% increase can be driven by a small absolute number of patients. There has been an absolutely enormous increasing in high endurance sport something more like 20x (or 1900% increase) and ultramarathon/marathon runners are 7.5x more likely to get colon cancer, so this leads to a surprisingly large relative increase in colon cancer.
- magicalist 5mo ago> A whole cohort of core studies have been judged to have invalid methodology due to not recording baseline microplastic levels (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2411099121 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2411099121) This does not say that and it's irresponsible to summarize it that way. That's a letter addressing a specific study from 2024 (which did record baseline levels because that's a standard experimental design step), arguing that it used an inadequate control so may have had background contamination when reporting the level of microplastics found in bottled water. A "cohort of core studies" were not involved, and nothing was "judged to have invalid methodology". The study authors also replied, arguing that their choice of blanks was actually the better one: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2415874121 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2415874121 There's been a slightly weird trend of people on HN that seem so eager to judge the microplastic story as overblown and unsupported that they're overstating and overextrapolating the smallest counter evidence into its own competing narrative, as if what we needed were more narratives. Resist this! That's not how good science or science communication is done.
- appreciatorBus 5mo ago[flagged]
- therobots927 5mo ago[flagged]
- mrhottakes 5mo ago"Straight Up Fool"-ism is running rampant on HN
- phoronixrly 5mo agoBut what exactly are you fighting for? What benefits are there to plastic food packaging, plastic kitchen utensils, kitchenware/food storage, clothing? Plastic packaging made 20% of EU's total packaging waste in 2023 out of which 42% were recycled/downcycled. Personally plastic food packaging is the biggest portion of my family's waste output. Plastic kitchen utensils like black plastic ladles are not durable (they break easily), and visibly degrade when exposed to heat or acidic food, unlike metal or wooden counterparts... Plastic kitchenware and food storage containers are also considerably less durable than equivalent metal or glass products. They also stain and degrade when in contact with acidic or other specific foods... I take it you've worn synthetic clothes, need I go into detail about how uncomfortable that is? On top of that, most of these are tied with fossil fuel supply and prices, and you can see for yourself what's going on with that right now... p.s. I'm pretty sure use of metal, glass, and wood is not marxism...
- therobots927 5mo ago[flagged]
- zugi 5mo agoFortunately however it's not hard to tell when people calling others "complete moron" are acting out of bad faith.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- therobots927 5mo ago[flagged]
- j_maffe 5mo agoThen don't reply.