What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

Microplastics have always fascinated me, because I keep seeing article after article about how much microplastic exists around us, but far less strong evidence about its actual effects. That is not to say there are no effects, of course. Maybe we just have not found them yet.

A friend of mine worked on her bachelor’s thesis about the effects of microplastics on the immune system, specifically T cells. Her result was that the microplastic particles she studied were too large to interact with T cells.

She probably will not publish this result because she thinks it is not interesting enough. Classic file-drawer problem in academic science.

While I encourage her to do it anyways as a negative results is also interesting but she wanted results that are worthing of headlines in magazines.

Some stand out takeaways:

> We assessed how reliable current measures are for trying to find microplastics in blood. And what we found is that lipids and fats will give you a false positive for polyethylene.

> We worked with an architect, and we built the lab pretty much from scratch. [...] So we ended up going with stainless steel. It was the only way to not have any plastics.

> I don’t think we’ve got really good evidence at all for what effects [microplastics particles on their own] might be having on human bodies. If we’re eating plastics, what size and what type of plastic can actually get into the bloodstream?

Did she debunk that article that was around microplastics in human testicles?

We’re going to find out at an autopsy.

I have grown to accept it. It is part of me now

Very nice to see someone actually looking at the issue objectively instead of the unholy blend of clickbait, shoddy "science" and either fear mongering or blind denialism we usually see.

Getting to the point where we're actually able to measure something real is good progress.

we have recently transitioned to only using glass bottles in our family.

one word: microplastics

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tldr, not much because we can't measure it to begin with

I think hate of plastics is an emergent form of elitism.

Upwardly mobile middle/upper class people who've sort of "maxed out" the amount of personal identity they can buy with regular plastic things can unlock a new level of identity by deciding that plastics are bad for them and eliminating plastics from their life, a process which conveniently requires buying a whole new set of things that distinguish them from their peers.

This is the only way I can explain how irrational and inconsistent plastic-haters behavior is. There is so much invisible plastic in their life that they don't seem to care about.

Are the microplastics in the room with us now?