What’s the Best Way to Trim Microplastics from Your Life?
The more researchers look for microplastics in the human body, the more they find them. The tiny fragments are released when larger plastic items break down in the environment and when they’re shed from plastic-containing packaging or materials during use. Increasingly, researchers are showing that microplastics can make their way into the brain, heart, lungs, kidneys and elsewhere.
What isn’t clear is whether they pose a health threat to people. Researchers reported recently that levels of plastic in the brain were higher in people who had dementia than in those who didn’t, but they don’t know whether the plastic contributes to dementia risk or if changes seen in dementia make the brain more susceptible to microplastic accumulation.
In 2024, researchers found jagged microplastics and even tinier nanoplastics in the plaques in some people’s carotid arteries, and those people had a higher risk of heart attack, stroke or death, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. In 2024, researchers published a review of evidence, mostly animal studies, that found exposure to microplastics is “suspected” to harm human digestive and respiratory health, including a potential link to colon and lung cancer.
Excerpted from AARP
