A bombshell': doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
A bombshell': doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/microplastics-human-body-doubt
3 comments
The money quote:
In the meantime, should the public be worried about MNPs in their bodies?
Given the very limited evidence, Prof Lamoree said she could not say how concerned people should be: “But for sure I take some precautions myself, to be on the safe side. I really try to use less plastic materials, especially when cooking or heating food or drinking from plastic bottles. The other thing I do is ventilate my house.”
“We do have plastics in us – I think that is safe to assume,” said Materić. “But real hard proof on how much is yet to come. There are also very easy things that you can do to hugely reduce intake of MNPs. If you are concerned about water, just filtering through charcoal works.” Experts also advise avoiding food or drink that has been heated in plastic containers.
In the meantime, should the public be worried about MNPs in their bodies?
Given the very limited evidence, Prof Lamoree said she could not say how concerned people should be: “But for sure I take some precautions myself, to be on the safe side. I really try to use less plastic materials, especially when cooking or heating food or drinking from plastic bottles. The other thing I do is ventilate my house.”
“We do have plastics in us – I think that is safe to assume,” said Materić. “But real hard proof on how much is yet to come. There are also very easy things that you can do to hugely reduce intake of MNPs. If you are concerned about water, just filtering through charcoal works.” Experts also advise avoiding food or drink that has been heated in plastic containers.
I was always skeptical about these studies, as it wasn't clear if there were proper controls. There are many ways in which the results could be an artefact of the experiment, and the article details a few that I didn't even realise.
Filtering your drinking water is one thing, but what about filtering the water of the animals you eat, the water that irrigates crops, water used in industrial processes to produce drinks and foodstuffs, water in which you cook, the water with which you wash your dining utensils, water you consume in public spaces. And that's just for ingestion - consider the water you bathe in, water you wash your clothing in, washing your hands in public restrooms, anything that produces an aerosol spray. Without society level changes to how water is processed, avoiding exposure is not practical.