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Microplastics found in every human placenta tested in study (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

41 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Scientists express concern over health impacts, with another study finding particles in arteries

Microplastics have been found in every human placenta tested in a study, leaving the researchers worried about the potential health impacts on developing foetuses.

The scientists analysed 62 placental tissue samples and found the most common plastic detected was polyethylene, which is used to make plastic bags and bottles. A second study revealed microplastics in all 17 human arteries tested and suggested the particles may be linked to clogging of the blood vessels.

Microplastics have also recently been discovered in human blood and breast milk, indicating widespread contamination of people’s bodies. The impact on health is as yet unknown but microplastics have been shown to cause damage to human cells in the laboratory. The particles could lodge in tissue and cause inflammation, as air pollution particles do, or chemicals in the plastics could cause harm.

Huge amounts of plastic waste are dumped in the environment and microplastics have polluted the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. People are known to consume the tiny particles via food and water as well as breathing them in, and they have been found in the faeces of babies and adults.

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[–] [email protected] 99 points 9 months ago (4 children)

So will microplastics be the new leaded gasoline? Turning every kid into an idiot or an asshole or both?

[–] [email protected] 68 points 9 months ago (2 children)

This is where we find out that 4chan and Joe Rogan were caused by microplastics.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

No, those ones are the lead I think.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Joe Rogan is caused by head trauma and HGH

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Probably just lots of cancers faster.

The real thing to watch for is if cancer rates just occur closer to retirement age anyways. Cause that could boost the economy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yup and we already see more colon cancer in young adults which makes sense if we’re eating microplastics. Obviously there’s a lot more that goes into it, but microplastics surely aren’t helping

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Is there actual data saying that it increases cancer risk? Everything I'm finding says that we have no studies (or enough data) to say what the health impacts actually are.

Edit: I see some of the sources listed further down. Going through them.

One thing I did find while searching - plastics in bottled water are 20x higher than tap water. Yet another reason to quit buying so many damn plastic bottles

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Turning? Not sure if you've been paying attention, but kids these days can't even read.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That would be due to underfunded public schools and making Teaching jobs pay part time wages.

[+] [email protected] -11 points 9 months ago (3 children)

And ipads in every kids hand, given by inattentive parents, actively robbing them of "developing literacy" time.

Kids are supposed to be able to read prior to coming to elementary school. It's expected, with minimal classroom time, by 1st grade, they're reading full blown books. That's fallen by the wayside.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

"Kids are dumb because iPads, they should be reading instead."

Ah yes, sorry I forgot you cannot read anything on an iPad. Ever since Apple outlawed reading back in 1997, we've been on a downhill slide to unga bunga caveman times.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I see your point, an iPad is a tool like any other, but FWIW, I ain’t never seen a little kid read on an iPad for fun. Arguably a parenting problem, but also kids games are juiced to the max.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Can't blame the technology itself for the lack of oversight from parents. Put a lock on the games, limit play time, or better yet give your kids a monthly allowance for an e-reader app. Make them excited to read.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Why can't you blame the technology as well? It's quite literally designed to be a trivial but addicting experience. Good parents can obviously circumvent the issue, but on a societal level it's inevitable that millions of kids end up glued to electronic devices at a critical time when they should be developing other skills.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

you ever seen a kid read a book when they have YouTube or TikTok as options

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Sounds like the parental controls aren't being used properly, more than it being the fault of technology.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

At its root, this is a social problem. When people make barely enough money to subsist they don't really rate "developing literacy time" very high on their hierarchy of needs.

It's more than just telling parents "work less and read to your child," especially if there's nothing to fall back on to pay for child care that's impossible to find for even those unburdened by poverty, or paying half of every check to rent, or the enormous rising cost of groceries.

When it comes down to the most brass of tacks, any parent would find it patronizing as fuck to be told they are failing their children because they have to work themselves to death instead of having the luxury of free time. And, of course, they understand that.

Strong social safety nets and support are what we need anyway, whether or not we're parents.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It's anecdotal, but plenty of kids are reading in my kid's first grade class.

He reads at a 4th-grade level which I attribute partly to reading and vocabulary apps.

When I was a kid, I could read pretty well by that age but it definitely wasn't the norm.

Either way, pretty sure you're basing this on what you feel is true, and not actual data. Have any?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Car tires are a major source of microplastics, making up 28% of the microplastics found in the ocean.

So yeah, cars fucking us over again. It seems to correlate to cancer and IBS, so not as much making us in to boomers more just killing us and making our lives less pleasant. Thanks again auto industry.

[–] Tarcion 83 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It is crazy that it has become this much of a problem and it feels like it is on almost no one's radar. Is this even reversible at this point? I assume not, but that it can definitely get worse.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Good news, it is! Unlike other bad stuff like heavy metals, microplastics and PFAS are naturally eliminated from the body, just very slowly. Procedures like dialysis, or even just giving blood, can remove them more quickly.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So giving blood doesn't really remove the micro plastics so much as transfer them to someone else who is in rven worse shape than you are

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Yeah but them needing blood is a bigger problem than having microplastics.

Also if it's replacing blood lost, then they'll probably break even on microplastics content.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

do you have any references to this and their methodology?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

For which part? I can link some studies, but you'd probably be more satisfied with the results you get by searching on your own.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

mainly curious about the dialysis. i feel the passive elimination would vary based on demographic, intake, diet etc. i guess you would just need something semipermeable that traps the plastics. trapping plastic with plastic

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Well now I can't find whatever I was looking at that said it was effective. But I did find this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666821123000868

Obviously, hydrogen peroxide would not be a good idea in hemodialysis, but some of the other reactants might be useful.

Since microplastics are a bit larger than blood cells (plastics 10-50um vs white blood cells 12-15 and red 7.5-8.7um) theoretically they could be filtered by a 15um water filter to get most of them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Unless we can somehow develop microbes or bacteria that can safely consume and remove these plastics within our bodies, this is forever

[–] [email protected] 56 points 8 months ago

What the article doesn't explain is that this is a good trade off. Even though we have microplastics in our bodies in return we're creating a ton of value for share holders.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago

Thisisfine.jpg

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And in 90%+ of seabirds.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

And is so plentiful in fish that I once heard a statistic being thrown around when I worked in the industry that somewhere around 2-5% of the fish we eat annually is plastic. That's a nice chunk of plastic every 20-50 bites.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

[+] [email protected] -18 points 9 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Here's an article from 2020 about micro plastics being a carcinogen https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389420309833

Here's another that goes over individual chemicals that may leech out of them https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068600/

That's just a few things from a search. There are already known impacts and we understand the mechanisms.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I want to begin by saying I am not dismissing concerns about microplastics in placentas. That's fucked up.

However, lots of things "are carcinogens". It's the dose that makes the poison.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Yeah, and carcinogens typically screw with DNA. So even a tiny dose will cause greater impacts on a fetus both as a greater concentration than the same dose would be for an adult and as damage to DNA will replicate exponentially more times than they would in an adult.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I admit I'm not a doctor, but the chance of petrochemicals in the placenta having no health impact sounds very unlikely.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

No health impact is surely an overstatement, but I have to wonder how long it's been going on. They say that aerosolized rubber from car tires is a contributor, and we've been driving for a hundred years. Plastic packaging has been in wide use since the 50s. Surely there is a health impact but it's also been going on long enough that we must know our bodies tolerate it at least somewhat.

I've taken to using silicone instead of plastic bags in my house to minimize my exposure, but I live next to a busy street so I feel kinda hosed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Big changes in quantity! I suspect a small amount is well tolerated, but we are exposed to far more. We are also seeing more exposure over ones lifetime.

We also don't know what number of on-the-rise conditions can be attributed to it. We don't know the full impact, but seems safe to suggest reducing exposure through regulation.