Stroke Patients Have High Levels of Microplastics Clogging Their Arteries, Researchers Find 19
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: There is some microplastics in normal, healthy arteries," Dr. Ross Clark, a University of New Mexico medical researcher who led the study, told Business Insider before he presented his findings at the meeting of the American Heart Association in Baltimore on Tuesday. "But the amount that's there when they become diseased -- and become diseased with symptoms -- is really, really different," Clark said. Clark and his team measured microplastics and nanoplastics in the dangerous, fatty plaque that can build up in arteries, block blood flow, and cause strokes or heart attacks. Compared to the walls of healthy plaque-free arteries, plaque buildup had 16 times more plastic -- just in the people who didn't have symptoms. In people who had experienced stroke, mini-stroke, or vision loss, the plaque had 51 times more plastic. [...]
To investigate why, Clark studied samples from 48 people's carotid arteries -- the pair of superhighways in your neck that channel blood to your brain. The difference in plastic quantities surprised him, but his team found another concerning trend, too. Cells in the plaque with lots of plastic showed different gene activity than those with low plastic. In the high-plastic environment, one group of immune cells had switched off a gene that's associated with turning off inflammation. Clark's team also found genetic differences in a group of stem cells thought to help prevent heart attacks and strokes by reducing inflammation and stabilizing plaque. "Could it be that microplastics are somehow altering their gene expression?" Clark said. He added that there's "lots more research needed to fully establish that, but at least it gives us a hint as to where to look."
Ross, who specializes in the genetic mechanisms behind disease, agreed that more research is needed, but added that she thinks "these plastics are doing something with these plaques." Tracking microplastics in the human body is a new scientific endeavor as of the last couple years. It's not perfect. Clark's team heated the plaque samples to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit to vaporize plastic polymers and break them down into smaller organic molecules, which can be identified and measured by their mass and other properties. Unfortunately, the lipids in plaque can break down into chemicals that look very similar to polyethylene, the most common plastic found in everything from plastic bags to car parts. "Because we know about this problem, we've taken a lot of steps to remove those lipids and confirm their removal, so that we're sure we're measuring polyethylene," Clark said. Still, he added, "it's a big limitation, and it should be acknowledged that these types of methodologies are continuously improving." "Almost all of what we know about microplastics in the human body, no matter where you look, can be summed up as: It's there, and we need to study further as to what it's doing, if anything," Clark said.
To investigate why, Clark studied samples from 48 people's carotid arteries -- the pair of superhighways in your neck that channel blood to your brain. The difference in plastic quantities surprised him, but his team found another concerning trend, too. Cells in the plaque with lots of plastic showed different gene activity than those with low plastic. In the high-plastic environment, one group of immune cells had switched off a gene that's associated with turning off inflammation. Clark's team also found genetic differences in a group of stem cells thought to help prevent heart attacks and strokes by reducing inflammation and stabilizing plaque. "Could it be that microplastics are somehow altering their gene expression?" Clark said. He added that there's "lots more research needed to fully establish that, but at least it gives us a hint as to where to look."
Ross, who specializes in the genetic mechanisms behind disease, agreed that more research is needed, but added that she thinks "these plastics are doing something with these plaques." Tracking microplastics in the human body is a new scientific endeavor as of the last couple years. It's not perfect. Clark's team heated the plaque samples to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit to vaporize plastic polymers and break them down into smaller organic molecules, which can be identified and measured by their mass and other properties. Unfortunately, the lipids in plaque can break down into chemicals that look very similar to polyethylene, the most common plastic found in everything from plastic bags to car parts. "Because we know about this problem, we've taken a lot of steps to remove those lipids and confirm their removal, so that we're sure we're measuring polyethylene," Clark said. Still, he added, "it's a big limitation, and it should be acknowledged that these types of methodologies are continuously improving." "Almost all of what we know about microplastics in the human body, no matter where you look, can be summed up as: It's there, and we need to study further as to what it's doing, if anything," Clark said.
Re: (Score:3)
You've put quotation marks around the period at the end of your sentence. You've also inconsistently punctuated "M.D." and "MBA", and have chosen to spell out "O.K." in your post subject.
Introspection is difficult!
Re:Okay (Score:4, Informative)
You've put quotation marks around the period at the end of your sentence.
US = inside, UK = outside.
You've also inconsistently punctuated "M.D." and "MBA"
Some style guides say to include the periods on MD, or at least used to, based on what I can find. Most style guides say not to include them for MBA. Cannot say definitively here, but I would agree.
and have chosen to spell out "O.K." in your post subject.
They are considered interchangeable, but style guides will point to one or the other. The only hard rule would be to stay consistent.
Re: (Score:2)
"is." is not a verb; "is" is a verb.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's keep going! ;-)
THATS how they measure plastic levels? (Score:4, Insightful)
Finally! Evidence of harm from microplastics! (Score:1)
Oh, wait, this isn't evidence of microplastics causing harm.
What exactly the plastics are doing in there, if anything, remains a mystery. The new study offers some possible clues, though.
They found microplastics in the material that clogged arteries, but then we find microplastics in a lot of tissues in the human body. They made a claim of something like many people having a "spoonful" of plastics in their brains, or something like that, don't sue me if I didn't get that quite right as it won't go far. If there was a spoonful of sand in people's brains then would we be able to notice any reduction in cognitive ability? Increased
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There may very well be dangers due to microplastics, but most of these studies sound
Re: (Score:1)
Jesus,
They checked healthy arteries.
They checked diseased (clogged) arteries and found 16x the level of microplastics of the healthy arteries
They checked arteries of stroke victims and found 51x the level of the healthy arteries, 3x the level in the clogged arteries.
And this is homeopathy?
Microplastics aren't at all hard to detect with the right equipment, they're just hard to see without. It's like cholera in early Victorian times, we're at the level of knowing there's something but not understanding exact
If you're reading this (Score:3)
And if you still don't want government action on microplastics, well that's probably because you have a whole spoon's worth of plastic in your brain.
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I fully support the research into the issue. But I worry about the way that small amounts of affirmative data can be blown up into full blown panics. You can already see evidence of every ailment being attributed to microplastics.
But (Score:2)
Is it possible that this research got the causation backwards? Perhaps it's not excess microplastics that cause arterial plaques, but the exact opposite - the arterial plaques cause microplastics build up - because, you know, plaques slow the normal blood flow and promote micro particles' precipitation?