AFP :
Microplastics have been found throughout the human body — including inside lungs, blood and brains — and while it is not yet clear how harmful they are to our health, some researchers are sounding the alarm.
These tiny pieces of plastic have been detected almost everywhere on Earth, from the deepest oceans to the highest mountains, as well as in the air, water, soil and food chain.
Every day humans ingest, inhale or otherwise come in contact with microplastics, which are less than five millimetres and mostly invisible to the naked eye.
“A human in 2024 has plastic in almost all the organs of their body,” French specialist researcher Fabienne Lagarde recently told a hearing of France’s parliament.
“And it will probably be even worse for the children born in 2040,” she added.
Numerous studies have linked the presence of microplastics — or nanoplastics which are 1,000 times smaller — to a range of health problems.
In March, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine found an association between microplastics accumulating in people’s blood vessels and an increased risk of heart attack, stroke or even early death.
“The body of research on microplastics is growing and it is already showing us that the health impacts are very concerning,” said Tracey Woodruff, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.
Woodruff recently conducted a systematic review of 2,000 previous studies on animals, finding that microplastics “can harm fertility, are linked to increased cancer risk and can harm respiratory health,” she told AFP.
It is a “red flag” that microplastics have been found in so many areas of the body “including the brain, testes and even crossing the placenta into the foetus,” she added.
Many of the most worrying studies, such as the one from March, have been observational.