Micro- and nanoplastics are an unfortunate inevitability in this day and age, and their ubiquity has led it to one of the most important organs in the human body.
What's happening?
A new study led by a team from the University of New Mexico used pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze post-mortem human liver, kidney, and brain samples from 2016 and 2024.
All three organs showed higher average concentrations of micro- and nanoplastics in samples from 2024 than in 2016. However, the brain contained seven to 30 times more plastic than livers and kidneys, and the 24 brain samples from 2024 averaged 0.48% plastic by weight.
Additionally, polyethylene — which is used in single-use plastics — was the most common material in all of the tissues and accounted for 74% of the polymers found in the brain.
Based on these results, which have yet to be peer-reviewed, "it is now imperative to declare a global emergency" over plastic pollution, Sedat Gündoğdu, a microplastic expert at Cukurova University in Turkey, told the Guardian.
"It's pretty alarming," Matthew Campen, a toxicologist, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at UNM, and the study's lead author, added. "There's much more plastic in our brains than I ever would have imagined or been comfortable with."
Why is the microplastic contamination concerning?
Campen noted that the 12 brains of people who died with dementia, including Alzheimer's, had 10 times more plastic by weight than other samples.
"I don't know how much more plastic our brain can stuff in without it causing some problems," he said.
There's also a correlation between increasing environmental concentrations of plastic and the 50% spike in micro- and nanoplastic concentrations from 2016 brain samples to 2024.
While it's still unclear what the full extent of the damage microplastics can cause is, it's an issue that shouldn't be taken lightly. According to Leonardo Trasande, a medical researcher at New York University, "the micro- and nanoplastics may be effective delivery systems for toxic chemicals."
They have been found everywhere in the human body, including placentas, lungs, semen, and urine. The material has also been detected in marine mammals, the sediment of remote lakes, and the air in the Arctic.
"It's scary, I'd say," Bethanie Carney Almroth, an ecotoxicologist at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, said to the Guardian. "There's nowhere left untouched from the deep sea to the atmosphere to the human brain."
What's being done about microplastic contamination?
Some researchers are looking to curb microplastic pollution through sustainable alternatives such as "vegan spider silk" and a biodegradable plastic made of barley starch and sugar beet. Others are trying to remove the material already in our environment through plastic-eating bacteria or electrochemical plastic dissolution.
As scientists work on solutions, you can limit your exposure to microplastics by purchasing new high-tech water filters, supporting brands with plastic-free packaging, and ditching single-use plastic products.
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