Scientists know our bodies are full of microplastics. What are they doing to us?

[Cattledog]

It's a disturbing thought: At this very moment, tiny crumbs of plastic are trickling through our bodies, a parade of unwelcome houseguests ready to take up residence in some tissue or organ.

A wave of new studies has come out recently, and each one seems to paint an ever more vivid picture of how microplastics — and their smaller counterparts, nanoplastics — have infiltrated the deepest corners of our anatomy. The lungs, liver and heart, guts and brain, even the testicles and placenta — nothing seems to be spared.

The outpouring of research has brought enormous visibility to how these fragments permeate our daily lives. Long studied in oceans, waterways and marine life, researchers have now shifted focus to human health.

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/12/18/nx-s1-5227172/microplastics-plastic-nanoparticles-health-pfas

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Then it's possible that we'll be preserved forever, w/ the forever plastics already in our bodies. Wow, how neat!!

On a serious note, what do these authors bemoaning this fact want us to do? We already dump our plastics into separate trash bins, and recycle the plastics at the trash yard, and I even recycle my plastics into several other uses before I ditch finally into the recycle bin. And our grocery stores are offering paper vs. plastic too, which i always chose the paper option.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they discover some micro critters that ate the micro-plastics? I know that I read of some articles where they were trying to develop or find tiny critters to do the job, and I thought that they did, perhaps it didn't work out, they perhaps were afraid to release into uncontrolled environment, can you imagine the damage that would be done to our society that all of a sudden, plastics were gone due to bugs eating all of it?

[lame54]

6. That's the beginning of a disater movie

[SWBTATTReg]

7. Yes. And I am kind of thinking that there is such a movie out there already, that our plastics were being

consumed by an errant microbe...it's been too long so I can't recall its name.

[GreenWave]

2. The thread title appears to blame scientists for this.

[doc03]

3. Well they could recycle us and make styrofoam

cups.

[yorkster]

5. You have a dark sense of humor...

but that was darkly funny.

Gives a whole new meaning to cuppa Joe...

[allegorical oracle]

4. RFK Jr. would recommend we use leeches. nt

[canetoad]

8. I've seen a few reports recently

About the unexpected rise in colon cancers in younger people.

These are the bottled water generation. Could there be a link between the plastic bottles and cancer?