I don’t need to wait for the science to know that having plastic in our body and blood is bad for our health.
The limited science we do have unsurprisingly indicates that it is.
It’s weird to me that a lot of HNers, like I see with western doctors, believe that until something is conclusively proven in peer reviewed research it should be treated as if it doesn’t exist at all. IMHO that’s irrational and robotic, there are such things as safe assumptions and educated guesses.
I think we do need science. We just went through three years of divisive public debate about science vs. "knowing" what is good or bad for our health.
Plastic is pretty chemically inert. We've been using it widely for decades to great benefit and there is no strong evidence that it's harmful. I would not be surprised to find that in the body it's basically benign.
Or maybe not, but I don't see how you can "know" either way, without scientific research.
The precautionary principle seems like it's often misapplied and dumb and never really applied properly. We shouldn't discard a wonder material for lack of science.
Inertness doesn't matter a whole lot when it comes to biological systems. There might not be any reactions where electrons are moving around but what really matters are the noncovalent intermolecular interactions when they get near proteins. Things that don't react can still act as ligands
I don’t disagree with you but Research cannot even directly conclude whether drinking any amount of alcohol is good or bad for human health - such is the case for any study which tries to link Behavior with Health Outcome.
> No studies have shown that the potential existence of a protective effect for cardiovascular diseases or type 2 diabetes also reduces the risk of cancer for an individual consumer. Evidence does not indicate the existence of a particular threshold at which the carcinogenic effects of alcohol start to manifest in the human body. As such, no safe amount of alcohol consumption for cancers and health can be established.
Indeed but it's complicated. I only mean to suggest one article/publication isn't enough to support or prove a point definitively - rather than get caught in the weeds about "if alcohol really does/n't effect health". Researching health outcomes is very complicated and nuanced but we should certainly continue to do it.
> These findings seemingly contradict a previous GBD estimate published in The Lancet, which emphasised that any alcohol use, regardless of amount, leads to health loss across populations.
We've been using it widely for decades and in that time fertility has dropped to the point that almost all humans will be infertile within 20 years. And that's without going into all the other stuff like the mental illnesses.
You're very much fighting the "healthy lead" fight
Seems like you're conflating (in)fertility levels with fertility rate. Fertility rate has been dropping steadily, particularly in developed countries; however, this doesn't mean individuals are slowly all becoming infertile. In fact, studies have shown infertility rates have plateaued in recent decades, at least among women [1].
Fertility rates are dropping for different reasons--fewer individuals choosing to enter into long-term relationships and have kids, and families choosing to have fewer children on average than previous generations.
It's about the burden of proof. If you try to place the burdenof proof on anything that changes the status quo, it causes two problems:
1. You can't prove a negative.
2. What constitutes a change from the status quo? The status quo is a vague concept in a dynamic world.
So you have to use some judgement. Plastic is really, really safe in small amounts. Same with CO2 emissions. It's only in huge quantities that they are a problem.
> It's only in huge quantities that they are a problem.
This is the critical thing. People are really really bad at nuances like “harmless in small quantities, harmful in large”. People tend to want to argue whether X is good or bad in a totally contextless abstract, like sports fans taking fandom too far.
HN doesn’t seem better than reddit or fox news in this respect. It seems to be fundamental to human nature. And yes, I know I do it as well. Such a frustrating bug in human cognition.
We don't really know that it's bad or just another thing our body can handle but I don't think we should conduct an experiment on such a grand scale without the slightest idea what it's effect will be on the human species. I definitely only drink filtered everything these days, but I knwo nothing will get it all (it's in food, the air, dust, etc etc.
We will need to find methods of removing micro and nanoplastics from our bodies. We are already ingesting them from multiple sources. There is already research about bad effects on male sperm quality [1], DNA damage [2] and more. By the time we clean up this stuff (if ever) in our products and services humanity will already have large concentrations of plastics in them.
nit, but this is usually accomplished with plasma donation (plasmapheresis) rather than blood donation. You can donate plasma much more frequently (2x/week) vs blood (once per 2 months), thought the volume taken for each is roughly similar.
The filters used must be a specific size, so how micro, are micro plastics? If they keep breaking into smaller pieces, wouldn't they be cell sized too?
And thus, pass cell sized filters?
So you filter out the blood cells (45% of volume), toss the plasma (55% of volume) and return blood cells + clean plasma. Any substances the plasma are gone. So this is useful to the extent that the substances you care about are free in plasma. At least in the case of PFAS ("forever chemicals") that seems to be the case, see "Effect of Plasma and Blood Donations on Levels of Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Firefighters in Australia", which found that 52 weeks of plasma donation reduced PFAS blood levels by ~30%. This was more effective than blood donation, which reduced levels by 10% and 0% depending on the specific substances you look at.
Ah, I see, sorry for missing your point. In the paper they injected particles of size "9.55 µm, 1.14 µm, 0.293 µm", and it looks like a red blood cell is 8um. So a purely mechanical filter that got red blood cells would retain the largest of those particles but potentially not the rest. But plasmapheresis uses a combination of centrifugal separation and filters so may be more or less effective than that depending on the properties of the cells and plastics.
“Excuse me, did this blood come from a vegan? I couldn’t possibly accept blood that isn’t 100% organic, free range, and —-“ (transcript ends, patient died)
The only feasible way I see for removal is via donation or some form of hemodialysis. As the saying goes, the solution for pollution is dilution (or at least in the medical sense!)
You don't need to feel guilty. Microplastics are pervasive to the point where everybody already has them in their blood, so people receiving blood with them in it are getting any noticeably net harm done to them. If you're in need of a blood transfusion the alternative is usually death, so all things considering maintaining the status quo of microplastic levels already in you isn't the worst thing ever.
What method could possibly exist that would remove threads of plastic embedded in tissue? Sounds incredibly invasive no matter what i.e a no-go. Don't plan for this stuff to somehow magically remove itself, plan on ingesting small enough amounts in your lifetime to render it a non-issue. If modern life is making that impossible then demand a better modern existence. If that's not possible to make society change for the better (I have my doubts) then accept your fate nobody said life would be fair, perhaps take up religion.
It's hard to say what methods will work, but it's not hard to imagine possibilities - a bacteria or virus (or even a nanobot someday?!) could be discovered / created that eats plastic but does no harm to a human body (or minimal harm that doesn't matter and can easily be removed/killed once it's got all the plastic) - see for example [1] & [2] different types of recently found plastic-eating bacteria for inspiration (the two bacteria types were found to eat different specific types of plastic, I'm not sure if they've tested each on all types of plastic or just published the first known).
Or maybe we discover some sort of light/sound/other wave/something that, like an x-ray, has low enough health risks to be worth sometimes putting through humans, but that somehow does something to plastic that will let the body dispose of it all?
Or maybe some drug gets created that somehow turns on some bodily function that can handle the plastic problem.
Or.... I don't know, I'm no expert, but I bet there's more possibilities.
Of course, would be good to do our best to reduce plastic use altogether anyway, for environmental as well as health reasons!
I’m not a biologist, but AFAIK just stopping new plastics inflow should be enough. The body continuously produces new cells to renew itself, including blood cells and what not, and this new material is plasticless.
Don’t take new plastic, and in a few years you should be good.
The problem is that the plastic is not removed. Kind of the same thing as people having shrapnel or bullets lodged in them for life - while your cells regenerate, the object remains and still interacts with you.
Care to provide a source? Everything I've ever read says large pieces of plastic are sometimes eliminated during defecation but anything else sticks around forever.
Engineered antibodies or possibly mRNA vaccine, maybe. Monoclonal antibodies would likely be too expensive for use as a purely ameliorative measure. But if we figure out how to fold proteins on demand, then we can express a sequence and make it like other biologics. That's still a very expensive proposition, but at least it would have economies of scale. Avoidance is the best medicine for sure.
The title seems to not quite match the article, unless I’m missing something. The title suggests that microplastics can reach the brain, which be a shocking result given that microplastics are relatively large (up to 5mm). The study only found that nanoplastics of a certain small size were found:
> In our study we performed short term uptake studies in mice with orally administered polystyrene micro-/nanoparticles (9.55 µm, 1.14 µm, 0.293 µm). We show that nanometer sized particles—but not bigger particles—reach the brain within only 2 h after gavage.
Still concerning, of course. They didn’t really do any quantification of how much this happened, they just administered rather extreme concentrations of deliberately produced nanoplastic formulas and then later found a couple particles in brain sample images.
The images they included (scroll down to Figure 3) are somewhat confusing in that they all have green dots in them, but only some of the dots are labeled nanoplastics. Even the control mouse has a lot of little green dots, but they’re not identified as nanoplastics for reasons I don’t understand. Someone more familiar with the subject matter would have to comment on how reliable this method is. The number of green dots is strikingly large in even the control mouse, so clearly they’re not all nanoplastics.
I suspect that microplastics are not reaching the brain. We have autopsies that can specifically look for this. Example: "Researchers found evidence of plastic contamination in tissue samples taken from the lungs, liver, spleen and kidneys of donated human cadavers." https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2020/08/17/Autopsies-show-mi...
I'm not downplaying the problem at all. If microplastics are in major organs that is a serious problem that warrants additional research or even outright bans. However, if microplastics are getting to the brain I think there'd be conclusive evidence by now.
I suppose what they are saying is smaller parts of the microplastics were apparently breaking off and entering the brain as nano-sized, none of the samples fed were nano-sized.
Ahh I see, reading a bit more, I think the idea is that the gut is filtering out the larger particles but simulation indicates the BBB could pass micro-plastics.
> These findings together with the computer model underline that MNP PS particles can cross the gastrointestinal barrier and the BBB within a short time, but only 0.293 µm sized particles were able to be taken up from the gastrointestinal tract and to penetrate the BBB. This suggests that the size of the particles may be a critical factor in their ability to penetrate the BBB [42].
> In our study we performed short term uptake studies in mice with orally administered polystyrene micro-/nanoparticles (9.55 µm, 1.14 µm, 0.293 µm). We show that nanometer sized particles—but not bigger particles—reach the brain within only 2 h after gavage.
Ah, now I see your point — and it is a good one. The title should be something like "Ingested Microplastics May Break Down Into Nanoplastics Which Breach Blood-Brain Barrier"
And we ingest them now, they are in our water [1], and they can’t be flushed out [2] — right?
But these corporations put out metric tons of it externalizing the cost to everything and everyone. While the individual is told they can’t have a plastic bag or straw, and that we can recycle our way out of it (which is a scam — it was shipped to China, not recycled). Thanks corporatism! Government is carrying water for corporations while individuals are distracted into thinking they can clean up the mess with personal action [3]
Worse yet, the personal action campaign turned a lot of people into rabid animals with 'recycling' everything, including much of which is just landfilled. And if you call into question the whole recycling industry, which has been mostly proven to be a scam of the plastics industry, they'll just get angry and say something like "well you just have to trust them at some point".
Now, metal recycling is definitely a thing. Recycling alu or iron is definitely a valid thing. It costs a lot of energy to convert iron ore or bauxite into the associated pure metals.
Countrywide laws that could change how recycling and products work: require cradle-to-grave product laws, and then make the source responsible for disposal. (That would turn the current externality into an internality. And their scale would help solve it.)
Or at least use pigovian taxes to remove the printed money from the economy. These would be great for forcing companies to start researching and using biodegradeable products right quick.
If you don't redistribute the money directly to the people, that tax burden can fall disproportionately on the working class, and you get stuff like this:
Furthermore, if you redistribute a UBI to the people, it makes the tax popular. This is massively important in a society that's tax-averse, and helps gather support for actually solving collective action problems.
In Seattle I've tried to donate blood multiple times over the last decade.
Every time, "because I've been to India in the last 5 years" they are unable to take my blood. Something about the risk of malaria. At worst, given a shortage, why not take my blood and analyze it? maybe even clean it (like with a dialysis machine)?
Talk about a dumb rule. Anyways... is there some other way to get this advantage? Are there blood letting doctors?
Your second citation simply says that someone made a breakthrough discovery that the particles could be identified in some subjects. It doesn’t conclude that they “can’t be flushed out”
Your third citation is a weird ranty blog about everything from anarcho-capitalism anti-vaccine rants that is more angry than informative, but it’s somewhat beside the point: We are making laws to reduce microplastics deliberately introduced to products. Asking the entire world to stop using plastics immediately isn’t a real option. Individual action does have a significant effect, as the highest numbers of microplastic/nanoplastic particles are found directly inside of plastic containers like plastic water bottles. Several orders of magnitude higher than your government-provided tap water.
> Individual action does have a significant effect, as the highest numbers of microplastic/nanoplastic particles are found directly inside of plastic containers like plastic water bottles
If I limit my personal use of products like these, will this keep microplastics from entering my body? Or is there an effect from the broader environment, regardless of my personal initiatives?
Also, will there be enough products that eliminate microplastics that it won’t be a huge cost/effort burden to go without?
Plastic from water bottles contains about two orders of magnitude more micro plastics than regular tap water. So yes, personal action can have an effect and the size of that effect is about 100x.
It’s not possible to keep micro plastics out of your body 100%, but like everything it’s a question of how much. Even your tap water contains compounds like cyanide in trace amounts that we can measure, but that just says more about our ability to measure Tony quantities of compounds. You have to look at the relative significance of different amounts.
The vast majority of microplastics aren’t deliveberaly introduced into products, but come from breakdown of “everyday” plastics. When you wash your polyester shirts, for instance. Or when your plastic containers are “recycled”.
Your characterization of having the entire world stop using plastics “immediately” is a strawman. We had decades. The amount of plastic has only grown, while R&D into non-biodegradable alternatives doesn’t get mych funding by comparison. The suggested solution is to have governments fund a UBI with Pigovian taxes. We can’t even pass this: https://csas.earth.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/...
We the People should be angry, since we and our children will have to live with the consequences of this dysfunction and inaction, and increase in production and consumption of these things which externalize the cost, thanks to the profit motive. The list of things in that third link goes way beyond plastics. This is how our system works. Ours is an environmentallh irresponsible generstion living on an ecological credit card. The individuals are distracted from banding together to vote in governments that will pass a Pigovian Tax and Dividend on an increasing number of negative externalities. It requires a political movement, and anger is a great motivator and uniting force.
In that third link, I list all the narratives individuals are told, in order to take focus away for governments and corporations, and onto shaming individuals into performing individual action downstream of the actual problem.
Of course, or at least massively reduce it, if we found alternatives that were good enough! Not “just” stop, but mandate some % of the savings go to R&D when Coca Cola or Snapple switches to Plastic. Tax that stuff!
Look at what we did with CFCs globally when we came together — that is a massive success:
We can also help reduce meat consumption gradually with more products like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods etc. but it is far better and more effective if the government gets involved and taxes factory farms.
As a side note, I know the alternatives have to be good enough before people switch, because I have been building https://qbix.com for OVER a decade, and only now we are ready to present an alternative to the Big Tech monopolies no one can exit because they lack viable alternatives. This problem is everywhere in capitalism.
the main source of microplastics is synthetic textiles. There is a serious argument to be made to ban synthetic textiles in areas where they can be reasonably replaced with cotton.
The other main sources are "city dust" and car tires. I suspect those types of microplastics are much harder to reduce.
The most important question is whether they are cleared over time or if they are bioaccumulative like heavy metals. Can the body clear them?
Is there a way to clear them at all? Even with medical assistance? There is chelation therapy that can clear some heavy metals. Anything like that for nanoplastic?
I have no idea so I submit the question to the hive mind.
Retired academic neurosurgical anesthesiologist [38 years; https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5DdrMc8AAAAJ&hl=en] here. My best guess is that once inorganic materials such as nanoparticles enter the cerebral circulation and lodge in brain tissue, they are there permanently.
What kind of interaction would you guess the particles would have with the brain after passing the barrier? I know heavy metals have stong interactions, but I wonder how bad plastic is, really - not that it would be good of course.
Depends a lot on the size, polymer, and even geometry (thread, shard, or just blob). Unlike metals, aliphatic plastics have little electronic interaction. My intuition as a chemist is most will just hang out in the lipid membrane or in vacuoles not really interacting with biology much. But it could also be worse, such as disrupting protein folding, messing with DNA replication, or triggering chronic low-grade inflammatory response. We don't really know at this time which is why we need studies like TFA.
I wouldn't even guess as to the nature of interaction of cerebral cortex/hypothalamus/brain stem/etc. with plastic nanoparticles — but I doubt that it would be a benefit. As Deckard remarked in another context, more likely than not a hazard.
> First, it’s great to read the full paper with no paywall. Kudos.
It’s MDPI. The no-paywall thing is part of their predatory scheme. Along with blazing fast reviews with not too many questions asked. Seriously, it’s completely unbelievable that any significant article would be thoroughly reviewed in 2 weeks, as this article seems to have been.
> Second, I agree with the conclusion that more research is needed.
I was cuttug up a hot pepper and washed my hands for a pretty long time. But still when I rubbed my eyes I got burned. Made me realize that I've probably ingested all kinds of things by not washing my hands well enough. And that tiny amounts of things enter our body all the time.
Also, It's "making the frogs gay"
( Alex Jones )
Why do this science? Are we just feeding mice plastic for kicks? Like yeah who would've known that nanoparticles pass the blood brain barrier - who cares?
Can't we just do some scans/biopsies on humans to assess if we have plastic in the brain and start from there?
How does this experiment further anything? I'm kind of appalled that this is some people's job - it's pointless, stupid and cruel, and done by scientists who get paid the big bucks doing it.
I know I'm a little ranty - but I'm serious. Why do people do these experiments?
You do these proofs of concept to prove the problem exists. Until there is hard science it can be hard to spur action. I could say, ya know, I believe that if any of these so called microplastics (subtly doubting existence) they would not be absorbed by my body and will simply exit may waste chute (doubting the problem). Now you can say, ya know, akssssssssshuallly studies show that yadda yadda. And then I could say ya IN MICE! And then you could be like oh ya fucko and start forcefeeding me shredded up milk cartons until you dissect my brain a few hours later. Now you've gone ahead and reproduced OP document and thats called SCIENCE!
The study in question found microplastic in 80% of test subjects. The presence of these particles is likely not new, just that it's been difficult to detect them until now. Buckle up, we're not likely to find out that they give us superhuman abilities.
I'm sorry - I'm refering to the experiment. I personally know that there are microplastics in our blood - I'm saying that this experiment is redundant, as your link arguably supports.
I'm obviously not arguing that microplastics aren't an issue - I'm saying we didn't have to force feed mice plastic to get actionable data to solve the issue.
I have not idea what you are arguing anymore, and frankly, it's just a lot of noise at this point. The way we figure out stuff is with experiments, sometimes experiments on animals. You're out here "no need for experiments, this is a waste of money, blah blah blah unethical, I could have told you that, everyone's embezzling money from the government, those rich scientists huminah huminah." I mean, I could argue these points, or you could just stop trolling.
I think there is too little oversight on animal testing and that this experiment is a flagrant example of that. While I understand that some experiment "require" animal testing, I don't see how this one arguably does.
That's not been argued, we're arguing the salaries of the scientists instead - not certain why.
I haven't talked abount embezzeling anything or that experiments are useless - just that I can't see why this one was done, and it makes me weary of most experiments on animals, even more than I normaly am, as they seem much more arbitrary than I would have liked to think.
We can do that as well, and I am confident some studies are in the works. But we still need to understand what is happening, which require controlled environments and simplified situations where we can study the effect of each parameter one after another.
I see. I think I'm arguing that we should be more critical of animal studies, as I'm having problems seeing what usable data was extracted from these mice that wouldn't have been found some other way.
Definitely! That is completely legitimate and suffering must be avoided as much as possible.
But sometimes such experiments are necessary and cannot be easily avoided. The alternatives are not understanding what is happening (which is ok if the thing is harmless; I don’t think that this is the default hypothesis for nano-plastics), or doing the analytical experiments in humans.
> I'm having problems seeing what usable data was extracted from these mice that wouldn't have been found some other way
Off the top of my head, in this setting we control exactly the amount of particles and their size, which is important to assess the mechanisms by which they penetrate the tissues.
Looking at dead humans has a huge sampling bias (people giving their body are not representative of the population as a whole), and we have no idea about the kind of particles they were exposed to, or of any other factor that could affect what we want to quantify. Maybe some kinds of substances can increase or decrease penetration rates (things that affect blood pressure, for example). In a controlled setting, we know that all mice were exposed to exactly the same conditions.
No no I'm the one who was supposed to rebut with "In MICE!"
You're right about the cadavers! Maybe such a study exists and we could skip ahead to agreeing its a problem or perhaps we enter the next phase: "are we sure these plastics in my brain are akshuuuaallly a problem, perhaps they are making me less stupid and more healthy MR SCIENTISTS"
Sure, you first, open up your skull for brain biopsy.
Lab animals are kept in regulated conditions (illegal/unethical behavior under the radar aside), experiments are vetted by institutional review boards, and they live pretty decent lives. There is mandatory sensory stimulation, handling, and socialization.
If you want to get rid of animal models, kiss basically every medical intervention goodbye (drugs, prosthetics, procedures, surgery).
Eh - I don't think that the mice force fed plastic has a pretty decent life, does it? While all the things you write are claims, I doubt you will be very convinced of them if you do any research on the subject. All undercover investigation in labs showed blatant mistreatment in every single case, which I am comfortable with generalising to most other labs, unless proven otherwise.
As for having my brain biopsied - I'm not the one arguing that we have microplastics in the brain. The scientists had this hypothesis, and killed some mice to prove it. I'm saying that they shouldn'y have been allowed to, since the result does not further anything about plastics in human brains, and other options seemed both to provide better human data and be more ethical.
It‘s not more ethical to do research on humans, unless you can be sure these humans do not participate in experiments due to their economic situation.
Anecdotal example: I have met a british guy who makes a living from participating in medical trials. He makes about 10-20k per year if I remember correctly.
I think I'm comfortable arguing that it is much more ethical to do voluntary human testing, as humans will always have more options than animals in cages - unless we are talking something like human trafficking, but I don't think that's what you are bringing up.
As for your example, I too knew someone living a pretty terrible life doing trials for a living, that died sadly. While I understand your point, I'm sure you can think of many avenues for this person to make a living without doing trials - i.e. stocking shelves, working a warehouse, janitorial work, service, etc. If they are under precarious circumstences, there are many options still.
> and done by scientists who get paid the big bucks doing it.
Uh, no. Grad students make bupkiss while they could easily pull six figures after completing a bachelor's. They do this because they are a curious, masochistic bunch who find working on important problems to be a worthwhile endeavor.
Is it only grad students or is there a lead researcher that asks for grants and such? I'm not a scientist myself, the ones I know are working for the governenent or are professors. While they are not rich they are much better off than the average person.
And is feeding mice plastic and then seeing if they have plastic in them a worty endeavour? It's fine because they aren't paid as well as if they were working corporate?
I'm also aware that a lot of people have to tailor their doctorate work to their advisor, meaning it could very well be that no one doing this experiment was "curious" or believing that it was "important".
I'm sure you know many bitter PhD's that studied things they find utterly pointless today - I had many teachers laughing at their own peer reviewed work.
The limited science we do have unsurprisingly indicates that it is.
It’s weird to me that a lot of HNers, like I see with western doctors, believe that until something is conclusively proven in peer reviewed research it should be treated as if it doesn’t exist at all. IMHO that’s irrational and robotic, there are such things as safe assumptions and educated guesses.