Microplastics and You
By Brian Shane
The scare of microplastics is not something new, but new research shows that it is also something that isn’t going away anytime soon and needs to be talked about.
So, what are microplastics? Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic less than five millimeters in size, they are not naturally occurring and due to their size can be found in the human body or in animals.
It has been known for a few years now that microplastics are in our bodies, but the risk and implications they have on the human body still isn’t fully known.
But new research has shown that microplastics are now found in the brain, and at an alarmingly higher concentration than in the other organs of the body such as the liver or kidney.
According to health science researchers from the University of New Mexico (UNM), the accumulation of plastic in the brain has gone up 50% over the last eight years.
This rate of accumulation mirrors the increasing amount of plastic waste around the globe.
According to Dr. Matthew Campen, a professor at UNM College of Pharmacy, microplastics could obstruct blood flow between capillaries, which are small blood vessels, in the brain.
They also could interfere with the connections between the axons in the brain, which would impact the electrical impulses of neurons and therefore affect the brain’s communication with the rest of the body.
“They could also be a seed for aggregation of proteins involved in dementia,” said Dr Campen, but their effects are still being studied, and nothing is definitively linked to microplastics in the brain.
Dr Campen suspects that a majority of microplastics enter the body through the meat we eat because farmers irrigate their crops with plastic-contaminated water, then the livestock eat those crops and then we eat those animals.
“Microplastics tend to accumulate in fat cells in the brain’s insulating myelin sheath, which wraps around neurons and helps to regulate signal transmission. That, in turn, might help explain the higher concentrations of plastic in the brain,” said Dr Campen.
As the effects and causes of microplastics in the brain are still being explored, it is important to remember that there are preventative measures everyone can take to help lower the amount of microplastics in their body.
Here are some tips to help you avoid microplastics while eating:
- Avoid highly processed foods
- Use wooden cutting board instead of plastic cutting boards
- If you drink tea use loose-leaf teas
- Avoid using single use plastics such as to go food and beverage packaging, plastic utensils and plastic plates
- Vacuum living spaces more often