7 ms·
Microplastics: No longer a "maybe"
- pashmini 10mo agoWe’ve seen it with lead, asbestos, and PFAS — decades of denial, then belated regulation, then generations living with the consequences. The only difference is timing —and whether you wait for policy to catch up or act on what the science already shows. Think it’s time to push for more studies on the health consequences of microplastics
- cmuguythrow 10mo agoI have often wondered why the government doesn't do anything about this. Is the science not clear enough yet? Quick search shows that we knew about lead hazards as early as the 1920s/1930s, but it took until the 1970s to get regulation about lead paint and gas - hoping we don't repeat that in this case
- 113 10mo agoGovernments aren't doing much about climate change and the science is very clear on that.
- goelbab 10mo agoIt’s hard for science to prove because there’s no control group - everyone is exposed. There’s also no clear definition of microplastics that I’ve seen. Different plastics have different toxicitiy
- ibbih 10mo agoIt's a bit too much of an umbrella term for regulation to fix in one swoop, but if i were alive in the 50s and had the internet i simply would not buy lead-paint.
- tolerance 10mo agoAnd not buying plastic is not always an option and to some this entire concern could be considered a luxury. Who are you trying to communicate this issue to and what solutions are there that they’d find reasonable until governments address it? If it’s simply “don’t buy plastic” then I understand that I’m out of bounds. Perhaps along with many others. Nice looking page.
- adriand 10mo ago> if i were alive in the 50s and had the internet i simply would not buy lead-paint The contamination is so widespread and is in things you can't avoid (like the air) but I have made some lifestyle changes that I hope decrease my exposure at least a little bit. I: - don't drink water out of plastic bottles - don't use any plastic dishes at home - switched from using tupperware for food storage to mason jars - use bedding made from natural materials (mostly cotton) - prefer clothing made from cotton as opposed to polyester (exception: some exercise clothing) - don't eat meat (this was not because of concern about plastic, but I think it's helpful here too) My family mocks me for this, but I also hold my breath when I clean the lint filter in the dryer, because that cloud of dust that shoots up is, I believe anyway, a whole pile of breathable microplastics.
- ibbih 10mo agoPreliminary studies show that you are actually drastically impacting your plastic intake. Try brushing your teeth with nonplastics too!
- breakingcups 10mo agoCould you explain why?
- IAmBroom 10mo agoPlastiphobia, mostly.
- bossyTeacher 10mo agoWhat about the containers your food comes in? These days its very hard for fruits and vegs not to be in contact with plastic
- coldtea 10mo agoScience works with cases with no control groups all the time
- dekhn 10mo agoYes but in those situations, you typically can at best find associations between variables and outcomes. We really want evidence of causality, although it sort of depends on how you interpret the precautionary principle.
- rpdillon 10mo agoYes, but teasing apart causality and confounding variables is very difficult.
- SeanAppleby 10mo agoAnimal studies seem like the best tool for untangling this, and they indicate that high plastic doses cause a variety of health effects, some of which seem to align with broad health trends we see in our population over time, like in fertility. It's not like there's zero data to inform the risk calculation.
- tshaddox 10mo agoFor what it’s worth, you don’t need a randomized controlled trial if you can offer an explanation for how microplastics affect human health. Hence the classic joke “As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data.”
- raincole 10mo ago> Is the science not clear enough yet No. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00405-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00405-8 (https://web.archive.org/web/20250211144614/https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00405-8 https://web.archive.org/web/20250211144614/https://www.natur... if you need) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39900298/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39900298/
- ibbih 10mo agoAre the mouse studies not worrying enough for you to change your behaviour?
- wombatpm 10mo agoAnimal models have flaws. They have doubled the lifespan of the naked mole rat, which has done bupkis for humans.
- onion2k 10mo agoAre the mouse studies not worrying enough for you to change your behaviour? Change to what?
- jstummbillig 10mo agoIf historically worries that arose in mouse studies replicated with high reliability in humans, we would not wait for the results of human trials to apply what we learned for mice to humans on anything of importance. It's not that we want to do humans trials. We do it because, apparently, it has been observed that it's unreasonable not to do it before applying something we observed in mice to humans.
- nick238 10mo ago"Your" behavior??? The second you try to put this on individuals, you lose the plot and it turns into another "personal carbon footprint" scam like what BP pulled in 2004[1]. The only way out of this is public policy and international cooperation. I don't know what the most common sources of microplastic particles are, but the messaging needs to be such that people know we aren't getting rid of all plastics, just the stupid ones that are most responsible for potentially harming us. I think straws were banned because there was a video of a plastic straw stuck in sea turtle's nose, not because they're one of the top sources. [1]: https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...
- pohl 10mo agoPlastics are largely a petroleum product, right? That particular resource extraction industry pretty much has a lock on public policy.
- nullorempty 10mo ago>I have often wondered why the government doesn't do anything about this. Is the science not clear enough yet? Government is always on your side!
- p1necone 10mo agoThe science is very clear on microplastics existing and being in our bodies. The science linking that to specific outcomes/harm is almost non existent from what I understand. Edit: to those downvoting - I'm not downplaying anything here, I agree they're concerning and we should be worried - just stating the fact that as far as I know the research on outcomes is very inconclusive at this point.
- rose-knuckle17 10mo agoIf the current US government started doing anything about it right now, i would immediately regard it as 100% horseshit. America won't be in any position to lead ... anything scientific, medical or even thoughtful for a generation or two, at least. I know there are still people hanging on in their fields trying to do the right things, but the bullshit engine in DC is so strong now that nothing is believable. If you are working in scientific research in America today, your only career goal needs to be emigration.
- goelbab 10mo agoMany of these microplastic studies [1-9] rely on small sample sizes (e.g., n=10 for brain tissue) and detection methods that could pick up contamination from lab equipment itself. It reminds me of when everyone was afraid of BPA And what defines a “microplastic”? There’s so many different types of plastics that all have different effects on the body What’s really the health trade-off compared to having to monitor every tiny little thing
- coldtea 10mo ago>It reminds me of when everyone was afraid of BPA That's still the case. >And what defines a “microplastic”? There’s so many different types of plastics that all have different effects on the body It's not that hard to constrain it to synthetic organic polymers (aka plastics) that are small enough (smaller than 5.0 mm). Even if there are some exceptions also considered plastics, this already covers 99% of the ones to worry about. And the effects we worry about are from the presense of millions of hard synthetic micromaterials like that in the bloodstream, organs, and even the brain. That's enough of a concern for the whole class, before we start to care about them "all having different effects on the body" (which is barely a given).
- rocqua 10mo agoDo you happen to know whether the worry is about the inertness of microplastics, and hence the physical damage of the particles. Or is it in the plastics being chemically interactive with tissue?
- coldtea 10mo agoBoth cases are considered harmful, the surer and heavier more general case being for the former. The inertness alone means boost in inflamattion, damaged cells, etc. Just consider that asbestos is biologically/chemically inert too - the issues come from inflammation, scarring, dna damage, etc. But (and varying per microplastic case on lots of factors: composition, dyes used, etc), the chemical interaction can also play a role.
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- notatoad 10mo ago>In diseased tissue samples of people with chronic illnesses (IBD [6], Dementia [7], heart disease [8]), microplastic prevalence is significantly higher than healthy tissue. this is very much not the same thing as "microplastics cause chronic illness", even though it's worded in a way that clearly wants to make you think that.
- pohl 10mo agoDoes it need to be the same thing, though, before we consider actions the Precautionary Principle might point toward?
- chemotaxis 10mo agoAnd where does it point toward? Other some untenable position such as "ban all plastics", which may very well produce more harm? The discourse around microplastics is pretty wild. The sport is finding them in random places, often at parts-per-billion or parts-per-trillion levels that we don't really use to look for most other substances. And the implication is essentially "progress bad" or "consumerism bad". No clear evidence of human harm, no realistic policy prescriptions - so what do we expect to happen, exactly? This it not a case of corporate greed or deception. Our bodies also contain a fair amount of sand. Probably at levels higher than parts-per-billion. Is it bad? Sometimes! Where does the precautionary principle lead us on that?
- atmavatar 10mo agoMake the plastic manufacturers own the external costs by requiring they fund proper disposal sites/messaging, if only to start making up for all the bullshit propaganda about recycling that's greatly exacerbated the problem.
- jagged-chisel 10mo agoWhile we're here, let's have them fund future treatment when we discover that illness has been caused by plastic.
- enether 10mo agoAren't nanoplastics a larger concern? All microplastics out in the open will degrade to nanoplastics at some point, and those find it much easier to infiltrate the human body. They penetrate the blood-brain barrier. This leads me to believe that it's literally impossible to avoid. The air/water supply must be getting more poluted by the minute with these things
- HPsquared 10mo agoI wonder if plastics, being non-polar, might accumulate in organs which are a bit on the "oily" side - the liver, adipose tissue, and the brain.
- tigershen23 10mo agoAny thoughts on the temperature of plastics? Looks like a takeout container at 95C (soup, for example) can release 50% more particles than at 50C [1], but how much of overall ingestion comes from this source? Several friends of mine avoid takeout for this reason, is that rational? [1] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2025/an/d4an01375a?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2025/an/d4an0137...
- ibbih 10mo agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzw_grLzjw&t=427s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzw_grLzjw&t=427s 55x for BPA? It's pretty annoying how wide an umbrella term microplastics are.
- pinko 10mo agoI've been having a good time chatting with Deep Research LLMs about this. The bottom line, for me, is that the risks of hot plastic -- to me as an adult, in, say, micromorts -- are dwarfed by the (also small but much larger) cancer risks of grilling steak all the time, so it's irrational for me to worry much about it. The endocrine-disruption risks to my teenage daughter, however, are less understood and make it worth avoiding too much hot plastic in our lives.
- breakingcups 10mo agoYou're absolutely right — the risk of endocrine-disruption is much more dangerous and is being ignored by the majority of the population. What an insightful take! Would you like me to expand on the reasons endocrine-disruptions are the bigger risk? Or would you like me to explore other ways in which microplastics might be dangerous to your health?
- K0balt 10mo agoRrrrgh. Although often super useful as research assistants and for exploring gaps in knowledge, the syrupy encouragement of some SOTA LLMs has started to really set me on edge.
- klevertree1 10mo agoI have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I think microplastics, and the chemicals that leach from them, plasticizers, are incredibly serious issues. In fact, my company, NeutraOat (neutraoat.com), is creating a modified oat fiber supplement to trap plasticizers in the gut and remove them from the bloodstream. On the other hand, as other commenters mention, a lot of the studies on microplastics are sloppily done and the conclusions are overreaching. These toxicology studies are certainly not up to the standard of the safety studies that are run on pharmaceuticals. The question is if they need to be in order for us to take action on microplastics. Personally, I think the risk/reward ratio is now clearly in favor of taking action on microplastics, even if I have some problems with the studies and I'm not as confident as the OP.
- seethishat 10mo agoSaying, "I avoid plastic products" is kind of like saying "I never smoke" while sitting in a room filled with people smoking. There is no avoiding it. We are all surrounded by plastics in the air, water, soil, etc.
- magarnicle 10mo agoSurrounded is very much the word, depending on what type of clothing you are wearing.
- metalman 10mo agothere are no arguments that propose the health benifits of micro plastics......