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.”
MORE:
www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/microplastic-contamination-human-brain-tissue/