It's been known for ages what plastic does to us. It effects our endocrine system. Like soy, it makes little boys into little girls, and it makes little girls obese.. Is it any wonder we have a reproductive problem in America and the world??
What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
Lynda
By Katharine Gammon
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Microplastics have been found in places as remote as Antarctica1 and the summit of Mount Everest,2 in fish guts, and in honeybees.3 Researchers recently found tiny plastic particles in the lungs of surgical patients, the blood of donors, and the placentas of unborn babies.4 We can breathe in polyethylene from our T-shirts because wastewater plants can’t fully filter them out. Microplastics are in our food—carried into the food chain by water or plankton—and in our toothpaste and dental floss.
When it comes to eating microplastics, scientists have documented plastic particles in about 40 percent of the human diet, including beer, honey, salt, and seafood. A graduate student in the United Kingdom collected mussels from different parts of the country and predicted that consumers ingest 70 microplastic particles for each 100 grams of mussels.5 Meanwhile, another study showed beer samples had about 28 particles per serving.6 People may be eating as much as a credit card’s worth of plastic each week7—or more, because scientists still haven’t figured out how to reliably determine microplastic levels in meat, vegetables, grains, or packaged foods, which means we still don’t know how much plastic we actually eat.
Yet despite all the new knowledge about microplastics and the even tinier nanoplastics, smaller than a millimeter, that enter the human body through ingestion or inhalation—available in a dizzying array of sizes, colors, and chemical makeups—there remains a gaping question. What exactly does it mean for human health?
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For example, researchers quantified how many microfibers we set loose when we wash a fleece jacket.9 A 2022 study10 led by the City University of Hong Kong found that a clothes dryer releases up to 561,810 microfibers during 15 minutes of use, and Coffin says it’s likely that the burst of fine particle pollution11 released when we clean the lint from the dryer vent is many times higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Act’s recommendations for occupational exposure to inhaling particles. “You might notice there’s a small cloud of dust. That’s trillions of nano sized plastic fibers you’re inhaling,” says Coffin. “It’s only a momentary exposure, but no one warns you about that.”
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“Some papers suggest that actually, nanoplastics could interfere with the energy production and mitochondria and that might induce oxidative stress,” which essentially means that the body’s ability to repair damage in itself is thrown out of whack, he says. “But we’re really in the dark about how that happens.”
Particles that end up in our bloodstream or tissue first need to cross a physical barrier in the gut or in the lung, Wagner says. Animal studies show that if particles are small enough, they can pass through tissue and end up in the bloodstream or in other organs directly.15 “And then what happens after is not very well known,” says Wagner. “Does it get excreted? Is there some way of getting rid of those particles? There’s really not a lot of experimental work being done on that.”
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As Wagner points out, studies on animals have shown microplastics can disrupt endocrine functions,18 or hormonal systems, which regulate biological processes such as body growth, energy production, and reproduction. Many chemicals are used to make plastics, and one, bisphenol A, found in plastic containers and bottles, is a notable endocrine disruptor. In lab studies, scientists have found that bisphenol A mimics the hormone estrogen and can lead to damage in sperm development.19 Further research has shown that microplastics, and not just those with bisphenol A, can cause damage to the testes and lead to the production of deformed sperm cells that have a harder time reaching eggs.20 Microplastics can also have effects on female reproductive health, such as inflammation in the ovaries and lower-quality egg cells. “I’m seeing a very consistent picture that there’s actually some reproductive health effects that nanoplastics and microplastics can induce,” says Wagner.
So much more on link, including references.
