If the idea of having a spoonful of plastic in your Noggin sounds bad, you are not the only one. Scientists are playing alarm by a recent study that shows that microplastics can accumulate in the brain.
Researchers from the United States and Canada wrote the comment, published Tuesday in Brain Medicine magazine. In addition to discussing the recent study of the brain, they detail the general science that suggests that microplastics are damaging the environment and our health. While more research is needed to discover the best ways to eliminate these substances from our bodies, people can already take measures to minimize their exhibition, scientists affirm.
Microplastics are any plastic piece less than 5 millimeters. In recent years, scientists have found them in almost anywhere where they have seen, from mountain clouds to our testicles to the poop of a baby. But a study published Last month in the natural medicine of researchers at New Mexico University, he sent a new wave of concern.
The UNM researchers not only found microplastics in the brains of deceased people, but found higher plastic concentrations in people, kidneys or other organs. In addition, this accumulation seemed to be much greater in recently deceased people, which suggests that plastic exposure has only worsened lately. They also found a greater concentration of plastics in people’s brains with dementia, perhaps pointing out a connection with the fatal neurological condition. UNM researchers estimated that today’s brains could carry an entire plastic spoon of these small fragments.
Nicholas Fabiano, main author of the new comment, published today, warns that there is still much that we do not know about the impacts on microplastics health. But what we have learned so far is not exactly encouraging.
“Listening that there is a microplastic spoon in the brain was shocking. As a resident of psychiatry, this is particularly relevant, since we currently know to the total extent that one can affect the cognition or mental health of one, “said Fabiano, a researcher at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Ottawa, to Gizmod However, these findings are not causal. “
It is not only the plastics themselves that could be dangerous for our bodies, but the chemicals that filter them. Scientists have identified more than one hundred plastic chemicals that can harm us or other animals, particularly chemicals that can imitate and then possibly interrupt the regulation of important hormones. These endocrine-disruptors have linked status at greater infertility rates, certain cancers and metabolic disorders such as diabetes, to name a few. And there is likely that there are other ways in which plastics or their chemicals may be affecting our health for worse.
“The current evidence base (based largely on animal and cellular cultivation studies) suggests that [microplastic] Exposure can lead to adverse health impacts through oxidative stress, inflammation, immune dysfunction, altered biochemical/energy metabolism, deteriorated cell proliferation, the abnormal development of organs, interrupted metabolic pathways and carcinogenicity, “wrote the authors of the comment of brain medicine.
Fabiano points out many unanswered questions about microplastics, says Fabiano. In addition to unknown long -term health risks, we are not even sure how these plastics are entering the brain, for example. There are also little to know how our bodies could eliminate microplastics, although some investigations have Suggested that we can literally sweat certain chemicals associated with plastic.
Despite these unknowns, Fabiano (and Many other scientists) They have asked governments and policy formulators to take action and begin to reduce our collective exposure to microplastics. Meanwhile, people can also do things in their personal lives to limit their plastics intake. These include: Change of regular bottled water to the filtered tap water; Eating less food commonly made with plastic, such as certain tea bags (said, some types of tea bags are better than others), or foods that are known to contain high levels of microplastics, such as seafood, alcohol and highly processed foods in general; and store our leftovers in glass or stainless steel containers instead of plastic.