Microplastics Found In Every Human Placenta Tested In Study (theguardian.com) 105
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Microplastics have been found in every human placenta tested in a study, leaving the researchers worried about the potential health impacts on developing fetuses. The scientists analyzed 62 placental tissue samples and found the most common plastic detected was polyethylene, which is used to make plastic bags and bottles. A second study revealed microplastics in all 17 human arteries tested and suggested the particles may be linked to clogging of the blood vessels. [...] Prof Matthew Campen, at the University of New Mexico, US, who led the research, said: "If we are seeing effects on placentas, then all mammalian life on this planet could be impacted. That's not good." He said the growing concentration of microplastics in human tissue could explain puzzling increases in some health problems, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), colon cancer in people under 50, and declining sperm counts. A 2021 study found people with IBD had 50% more microplastics in their feces. Campen said he was deeply concerned by the growing global production of plastics because it meant the problem of microplastics in the environment "is only getting worse."
The research, published in the Toxicological Sciences journal, found microplastics in all the placenta samples tested, with concentrations ranging from 6.5 to 790 micrograms per gram of tissue. PVC and nylon were the most common plastics detected, after polyethylene. The microplastics were analyzed by using chemicals and a centrifuge to separate them from the tissue, then heating them and analyzing the characteristic chemical signature of each plastic. The same technique was used by scientists at the Capital Medical University in Beijing, China, to detect microplastics in human artery samples. The concentration of microplastics in placentas was especially troubling, Campen said. The tissue grows for only eight months, as it starts to form about a month into pregnancy. "Other organs of your body are accumulating over much longer periods of time," he added.
The research, published in the Toxicological Sciences journal, found microplastics in all the placenta samples tested, with concentrations ranging from 6.5 to 790 micrograms per gram of tissue. PVC and nylon were the most common plastics detected, after polyethylene. The microplastics were analyzed by using chemicals and a centrifuge to separate them from the tissue, then heating them and analyzing the characteristic chemical signature of each plastic. The same technique was used by scientists at the Capital Medical University in Beijing, China, to detect microplastics in human artery samples. The concentration of microplastics in placentas was especially troubling, Campen said. The tissue grows for only eight months, as it starts to form about a month into pregnancy. "Other organs of your body are accumulating over much longer periods of time," he added.
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rsilvergun's old jelly dildoes
kin lol
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I'm actually quite envious that rsilvergun has managed to occupy someone's imagination so much that his name comes up in every single Slashdot post.
I wish I could get that kind of attention.
Re:They probably got there from medical care. (Score:4, Insightful)
Top most stupid idiotic comment of the new century. Uses false equivalence, broken logic, strawman, misses the implications/importance, attacks the wrong group and pretends to be a voice of reason, is wrong and idiotic. it really does shine is imbecility perfected. congrats!
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Uses false equivalence, broken logic, strawman, misses the implications/importance
Not really. Much of the alarmism about "microplastics" is misplaced, and many articles (including TFA) are misleading.
"Plastics" cover a vast array of chemicals, from polyethylene to vinyl chloride and phthalates. Some are a health concern. Others are not. Lumping them all together to scare the public is not helpful.
Some [plastics] are a health concern. Others are not [so far as we know at the moment]. Making authoritative blanket statements about a poorly understood phenomenon posing no risks is in it self irresponsible. The fact that these plastic particles have been found literally in and among the DNA strands in the nuclei of the cells of higher vertebrates should be at the very least be considered alarming enough to warrant the funding of some serious research into the consequences.
These scare articles also contain no information about what people can do to avoid microplastics or what we, as a society, could or should do about them.
And, no, "recycling water bottles" is not the answer.
There is no avoiding micro- and
Re: They probably got there from medical care. (Score:2)
At a macro level, for example PLA is biodegradable, and I believe both PLA and the breakdown products are reasonably innocuous, although sometimes it has additives that are not. It doesn't break down as quickly as the green washing wood suggest, but even decades is manageable. Humans aren't great at dealing with problems on the scale of decades, but we can do it. Problems b lasting centuries or millennia are literally of a different order
Re: They probably got there from medical care. (Score:3)
Because the risks are insignificant, particularly so in comparison to getting infected.
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Can't the same thing be said about microplastics? Aren't the risks insignificant, in comparison to the benefit plastics have for a modern economy and lifestyle?
It seems for the vaccine you're willing to only look at benefits, but for micro plastics you're only willing to look at costs.
Isn't it more reasonable to look carefully at costs *and* benefits?
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I don't think there's a need to rush into drastic reduction of plastics.
The benefits and risks of the vaccines are known.
We don't know what the risks of microplastics and nanoplastics are. I think we need to know.
We need to know if some plastics are better for this. We need to know if recycling plastic is safer.
Putting $100m into research is nothing when the health costs could be in the $trillions.
As far as benefits go, we do have alternative packaging eg paper & glass. It wouldn't be that terrible i
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The benefits and risks of the medicines are known too. Should we no longer expect new medicines to be tested and proven safe, since a whole bunch of older medicines have already been proven safe? A vaccine with 100 years of history is much different than a vaccine with 6 months of history.
I feel the same way about novel vaccines. It's a sin that we spent trillions o
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Because the risks are insignificant, particularly so in comparison to getting infected.
The mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 were rushed under an emergency situation. These were the very first mRNA vaccines brought to market. The risks COVID-19 posed were deemed severe enough to suspend the normal testing procedures. It was later discovered that some of these vaccines carried risks - some severe enough that one brand was pulled from the shelves while additional tests were performed.
I personally have lasting effects, though I can't reasonable say if they're from my COVID-19 infection or subsequen
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These were the very first mRNA vaccines brought to market.
Being "first to market" doesn't indicate something is unsafe or untested. Research into mRNA has been ongoing since the 1960s, and the first mRNA human vaccine trials started in 2001 [nature.com], with the first human clinical trials for a rabies mRNA vaccine starting in 2013 [thelancet.com].
In this case, "being first to market" is misleading, as mRNA vaccines already had 20 years of human testing by the time the first COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were approved.
Yaz
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These were the very first mRNA vaccines brought to market.
Being "first to market" doesn't indicate something is unsafe or untested. Research into mRNA has been ongoing since the 1960s, and the first mRNA human vaccine trials started in 2001 [nature.com], with the first human clinical trials for a rabies mRNA vaccine starting in 2013 [thelancet.com].
In this case, "being first to market" is misleading, as mRNA vaccines already had 20 years of human testing by the time the first COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were approved.
Yaz
I didn't claim that "first to market" indicates unsafe or untested - I just wanted to show that the first mRNA vaccine which passed tests well enough to be brought to market was from 2020, whereas further up the thread was talking of "centuries" of history. I would hope that if something passed the trials well enough to be brought to market it would mean it could be reasonably trusted (NOTE that the COVID-19 vaccines were initially approved under emergency situations). Even if mRNA vaccines started testing
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It's a myth that any vaccine was pulled. The Oxford vaccine, which was being given away at cost, was considered inferior to the mRNA ones and they decided not to try updating it. I imagine Astra Zeneca was unwilling to do it at cost again.
Your doctor was right that your own immune memory was probably superior to anything that comes from a vaccine, though they diminish over time. Hopefully, your vaccine reduced the effects of the variant. I agree with self-education though a lot of the science is hard.
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It's a myth that any vaccine was pulled. The Oxford vaccine, which was being given away at cost, was considered inferior to the mRNA ones and they decided not to try updating it. I imagine Astra Zeneca was unwilling to do it at cost again.
Your doctor was right that your own immune memory was probably superior to anything that comes from a vaccine, though they diminish over time. Hopefully, your vaccine reduced the effects of the variant. I agree with self-education though a lot of the science is hard.
The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine was paused in October 2021 due to a high risk of cardiovascular side effects. After extra testing, a Moderna vaccine is again available.
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Now apply the same precaution to novel vaccines. Tell me how irresponsible authorities were for making authoritative blanket statements about a poorly understood phenomenon posing no risks.
Vaccines have a centuries long track record and have proven themselves to have benefits that far, far, far outweigh any of their shortcomings. Micro- and nanoplastics do not have centuries long track record of being to be harmless. Vaccines being life threateningly dangerous may be your deeply held belief but deeply held beliefs are no substitute for a centuries of data and empirical evidence.
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So polyethylene, which they detected most, was first synthesized in 1898.
The COVID mRNA vaccine was first tested in 2020.
Which one has a longer track record?
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Now apply the same precaution to novel vaccines. Tell me how irresponsible authorities were for making authoritative blanket statements about a poorly understood phenomenon posing no risks.
Vaccines have a centuries long track record and have proven themselves to have benefits that far, far, far outweigh any of their shortcomings.
mRNA was discovered in the 1960s. A delivery mechanism was delivered in the 1970s. I believe the parent was speaking of the COVID-19 vaccines which are the first mRNA vaccines brought to market (2020). The 1960s and 1970s aren't yet a century ago. 2020 isn't even a decade ago. Traditional vaccines have a long history. Even so, new vaccines have to be properly vetted. The effectiveness and usefulness of previous vaccines bolster our confidence in trying new vaccines.
I won't argue against the need to limit mi
Re: They probably got there from medical care. (Score:2)
Improperly disposed soda bottles are the least of the issue with microplastics. Plastics are in everything. Clothes, hygiene products, weather resistant paints, and tires are the bulk of the issue. Anything that routinely abrades. The plastic bottle that ends up in a landfill isn't the problem, it's the no-iron shirt you bought for work.
Clothes are easy to fix (go back to natural fibers) and at the same time hard (high impact to daily life). Tires I'm not sure, I doubt it would be as simple. Corrosion resis
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Please don't hold back, let yourself go, tell us how you really feel.
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what kind of fucking moron thinks "use plastics" or "do not use plastics" are the only options and how can I achieve such an enlightened state of stupidity? it sounds blissful in it's abject simplicity
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What solutions do you suggest to prevent microplastics from ending up in the human body?
Re:They probably got there from medical care. (Score:5, Informative)
Stop putting shit like plastic micro beads in toothpaste and cosmetics. Stop making so much single use items like water bottles and every country should stop dumping trash in the ocean. Not exactly difficult.
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and not exactly useful. given the broad range of plastic use those changes will have little impact. the problem is that we use it in almost everything from building to surgery and it accumulates/circulates and doesn't degrade, it only gets smaller and thus even more pernicious for life. burying it in landfills will only offset the problem for a while.
with climate change we still have the hope/illusion that "clean energy" is feasible. with plastics there isn't even such an option, short of stopping its use a
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and not exactly useful.
Not really. The majority of the world's single use plastic can easily be substituted with something equally as useful to the end user.
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Not really. The majority of the world's single use plastic can easily be substituted with something equally as useful to the end user.
much of it, not really "easily". besides, i'm fine with doing that, it makes sense, but still the majority of the world's single use plastic use is just a fraction of the world's plastic use. the stuff is literally everywhere.
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Stop putting shit like plastic micro beads in toothpaste and cosmetics. Stop making so much single use items like water bottles and every country should stop dumping trash in the ocean. Not exactly difficult.
50% of marine microplastics come from tire dust.
Tell us again how it's not difficult to fix this problem.
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Nuke the US, then without car propaganda the rest of the world can be teached to restore railroads.
Re: They probably got there from medical care. (Score:2)
The US has a shitload of nukes though, that would be a bad plan. Going to have to use a disease instead
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The SeaSpiracy documentary posits that 50% of ocean plastic is due to fishing.
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Well, things to improve aren't difficult to list. I could even think of a few that you missed.
What to do, though, get a lot more difficult. Glass is a lot heavier than plastic, tends to break, and leaves these dangerous shards around. So there's lots of places where people really prefer not to use it. Metals are also questionable, and don't have the same use cases. (E.g. metal insulators are not easy or cheap.) Similar comments apply to ceramics.
Biodegradeable plastic is the best choice, but beware of
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Not exactly difficult.
I have never seen a Slashdot comment illustrate how ignorant a person is as well as your comment does. Congratulations!
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The question is akin to "What solutions do you suggest to prevent fluids from ending up in the human body".
Where specific plastics are identified to have specific harms, and the mechanisms understood, then specific measures can be taken to address those cases.
Re: They probably got there from medical care. (Score:5, Funny)
I quit using my placenta decades ago.
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what kind of fucking moron thinks "use plastics" or "do not use plastics" are the only options and how can I achieve such an enlightened state of stupidity? it sounds blissful in it's abject simplicity
The same moron who thinks if a vaccine isn't 100% effective at preventing an infection, despite no vaccine being 100% effective at preventing an infection, it's worthless.
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Why does it need to be without? If you imagined your life with less plastics, would it be frighteningly different? If so, I might think you're frightened rather easily.
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How much less? 50%? 70%? 5%?
Do you have any objective measure of when we should be worried about microplastics found in placentas that would guide us to what an acceptable reduction would be?
I'm not hearing any argument that we should curtail our plastics consumption by 5% in order to reap massive benefits. Perhaps you've seen something I haven't.
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The anti-woke sure like to imagine that there's this huge woke/anti-woke battle going on, don't they? Like, do you have so little to do in life that you sit around ruminating on what the woke agenda will push upon you next?
You're right though, plastics must have made life so easy and carefree that you have plenty of time to imagine all the various ways that large groups of people are out to get you.
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Only the woke think that there is an "anti-woke" :)
Let's be honest, the parent post was perfectly reasonable, and not in any way a Troll. You may deny the evidence of your own eyes, watching obviously insightful or at the very least normal comments getting downmodded, but we can all see it happening.
Mod points at slashdot have always been lean left, but it's gotten ridiculous over the past decade of drift to the extreme woke. Between blacklisting accounts so they never get mod points, to giving out mod po
Should I care? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Should I care? (Score:5, Informative)
Can’t say I’m a fan of plastic crossing the blood brain barrier. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Further research is required.
Re:Should I care? (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing about plastics is that they mostly don't interact with biological systems. That is one of the key properties that makes them useful - they do not rot or otherwise decay.
Which is the problem with anything that can accumlate in the human body. One or two pieces of microplastics won't harm you, but as they accumulate, as stuff starts to bind to them in the body, who knows what will happen? Will the body start acting as if it's infected and get into an endless loop of trying to attack something which doesn't rot? Will enough accumulate that it forms a mass and blocks ducts or pathways? What happens if they break down and release their toxic composition into the body?
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Yes, this is the scary thing. It's how asbestos related cancers get going. Your lungs are designed to move fluids up so you can cough things up, but some things get stuck and asbestos fibers are such things. I remember reading about how they migrate out of the lungs because they penetrate tissue, but they also get coated with proteins and such because the body knows they don't belong. I don't think they fully understand it yet; but IIRC, they might be thinking that the protein coating is part of the pro
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Right, just like asbestos?
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We all know about that because actual evidence showed harm. Not just a fashionable fear based on nothing but detecting the fibres.
Every breath we take brings microscopic fibres into our lungs. Do you care about all the others?
p.s. a sarcastic "right, just like X" is lazy, and a poor excuse for an argument. I'm sure you are capable of better.
Re:Should I care? (Score:5, Informative)
Serious answer -
First, compliments for asking a thoughtful well-composed pertinent set of questions.
The answer in a nutshell - no one yet has clear well-resolved answers to those questions, but over the past 10-15 years there has been a growing awareness of the possible problems of plastics in biological systems, paralleling the concerns about plastics in the environment. As interest in the issue and efforts to investigate ramp up, there are signs of some disturbing associations between plastics and health or disease.
Things we implant in people are generally metals & alloys, glasses & ceramics, natural fibers, and organic & silicone polymers. Each category and individual material has exhaustive research and clinical development behind it, and unsafe materials have been weeded out from implantable devices. However, "unsafe" is relative. It usually means that a material is non-toxic, i.e. no immediate toxic-metabolic or hyper-immune responses. It also usually implies that a material has been studied for short time (e.g. up to a year) or intermediate time of several years, usually from the point of view of wear and failure, or else fibrosis and loss of effectiveness. The idea that implants deemed safe over 5-10 years might then have tardive (late) complications in 20-50 years has not been answerable for many materials, for many reasons. Some materials have not been in service long enough. Some materials fall "under the radar" because they work well in the short run and then it is assumed that they continue to do well without careful scrutiny in those later years. The doctors who implant devices will rarely have the long term association with a patient that they would hear about a complaint 20 years later, and even if they do, the symptoms will likely present as "intercurrent" complaints not obviously related to the device or its anatomical site. Most companies making implants have been responsible about pursuing safe materials, but in recent decades some have notoriously continued to make and market products known to be detrimental (and why the FDA does not intervene - who knows?). In short, for these reasons, there simply has been little recognition or even reason for suspicion of this problem until recently. Now that concerns have been raised, there will probably be an ongoing rush of new studies along these lines.
Concerning plastics and polymers, a few things have been known for a long time. Most implant science focuses on short term bio-compatibility, such as not provoking acute inflammation, not being prone to infection, not lysing or breaking, or maintain desirable mechanics (such as an artificial joint not loosening at the metal-bone interface). For plastic implants, inflammation-extrusion and maintaining elastic motion without wear-failure and without fibrosis-stiffness have been the main concerns. To achieve desirable results without short term complications, pertinent factors include precise chemistry of the material, stability of the chemistry in lab and in living biological environments, and even shape, edges, surface textures. Long term serious health risks would predictably fall into several categories - (1) chronic inflammation, immunity, auto-immunity resulting in lupus-like conditions; (2) dysplastic-anaplastic cell transformations leading to cancer; (3) toxic-metabolic effects of unknown or unanticipated metabolites ending up elsewhere in the body, for which late neurological diseases are most likely to present, although liver, kidneys, lungs, and others are also at risk. From that point of view one interesting disease is BIA-ALCL (breast implant associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma) which is rare and occurs only with a specific type of implant with a specific type of silicone surface. (This whole subject is not one I follow too closely these days, so there may be other disorders identified in other specialties, but I suspect there will be more to come in the coming decade or two.) Another well-known issue - silicone joint implants. They were t
Re: Should I care? (Score:2)
Points
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:2)
Excellent information.
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Good question!
They could have tested for plutonium, and I can guarantee every placenta will contain detectable amounts of plutonium.
That also would make for a great click-bait headline, even though the amount is trivial and harmless.
Microplastics are new and worth investigating, so researchers should care. But the average person? No, we have too many other things to worry about, and there is nothing we can do about it.
Re: Should I care? (Score:1)
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Clogging of blood vessels
Increases in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)
Increases in colon cancer in people under 50
Declining sperm counts
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Hm, endless entertainment and I don't have to buy it dinner. How is that bad?
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What about the bleeding with the moon?
Re: Should I care? (Score:2)
I'd rather be a werewolf, but this is a solid second place.
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SOME plastic is, or contains plasticizers which are, estrogen mimics. Not all.
Also, being an estrogen mimic doesn't mean or imply that it will have the same bio-activity as estrogen, just that it will be similar in SOME interactions. Probably at a different speed.
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Do these two molecules look the same to you?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Ob Old joke (Score:2)
"There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?"
Great Future in Plastics ("Graduate" ref) (Score:2)
In Soviet America, the future plastics are in you.
Better filtering (Score:2)
Worrywarts (Score:1)
No worries, either climate change or nuclear war will finish us off first.
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> but finish us, unlikely.
If say 95% of the population gets wiped out, the chance that you and I in particular are remaining is small. We still wouldn't be around to worry about microplastics.
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Food Chain (Score:2)
This is bad news for the food chain. When the humans eat these placentas are, in turn, eaten by worms, there will be a perpetual motion of microplastics.
Not to mention the lions and cannibals.
And won't someone think of the zombies?
How will they cope with microplastics on the brain?
Bigger Perspective (Score:2)
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how about milk and juice bottles ? (Score:1)
Sure milk cartons are an alternative, but they're not as easily/cheaply manufactured.
Some background info (Score:2, Troll)
- Plastic consumption has quadrupled over the past 30 years, driven by growth in emerging markets. Global plastics production doubled from 2000 to 2019 to reach 460 million tonnes. Plastics account for 3.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
- Global plastic waste generation more than doubled from 2000 to 2019 to 353 million tonnes. Nearly two-thirds of plastic waste comes from plastics with lifetimes of under five years, with 40% coming from packaging, 12% f
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If it were a competition between the plastics industry & humanity, the plastics industry is winning, hands down. We need to up our game.
Substitute "the plastics industry" with "unfettered capitalism", and you're pretty much right.
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They also found ... (Score:1)
... molecules!
And ... {shudder} ... compounds!
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They even found organic compounds. You know what contains organic compounds? All sorts of bacteria and parasites!
790ug per gram of tissue? (Score:1)
In placenta? I call BS. One would require seasoning their food with powder plastic like we do with salt and pepper to achieve such concentrations.
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We eagerly await the results of your own study into this issue, at which point you might have something to say worth listening to. Until then it's just blah blah blah yak yak yak
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Good point, maybe you should become a professional scientist, and show all of these researchers how their college degrees are useless.
How did they avoid contaminating the samples? (Score:1)
Just curious because every lab on the planet uses plastic in test equipment.
Evolution (Score:2)
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Erh... are we pro or con?
Re:Plastic manufacturers are POISONING BABIES? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but I don't think that even in Alabama a placenta is a fetus.