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And chemicals often found in plastics are known to cause a variety of health problems, including cancers, metabolic disorders, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and fertility issues.
Humans are exposed to toxic chemicals and microplastics at all stages in the plastics life cycle. The effects of microplastics on human health are a growing concern and an actively increasing area of research. Tiny particles known as microplastics (MPs), have been found in various environmental and biological matrices, including air, water ...
Finding microplastics in human body parts is not new: Scientists have uncovered the minuscule waste products in human blood, lungs, brains, hearts and testicles. But a new study, published Monday ...
Concerns have grown since the National Institutes of Health published a study in May finding that, on average, 91 brain samples contained roughly 10 to 20 times more than other organs (e.g., the ...
Microplastics are likely to degrade into smaller nanoplastics through chemical weathering processes, mechanical breakdown, and even through the digestive processes of animals. Nanoplastics, or NPs, are a subset of microplastics and they are smaller than 1 μm (1 micrometer or 1000 nm). Nanoplastics cannot be seen by the human eye. [4]
Some substances cause cancer primarily through their physical, rather than chemical, effects on cells. [32] A prominent example of this is prolonged exposure to asbestos, naturally occurring mineral fibers which are a major cause of mesothelioma, which is a cancer of the serous membrane, usually the serous membrane surrounding the lungs. [32]
The brain has a protective barrier that should protect us against microplastics Unlike the kidney, liver, and other organs, the human brain has a protective filter called the blood-brain barrier ...
However, as plastic is broken down into smaller pieces and eventually microplastics, there is a higher likelihood that it will be consumed by plankton and enter into the food chain. [58] As plankton are eaten by larger organisms, the plastic may eventually cause there to be bioaccumulation in fish and other marine species eaten by humans. [58]