Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

https://oceanconservancy.org/news/its-not-just-seafood-new-study-finds-microplastics-in-nearly-90-of-proteins-sampled-including-plant-based-meat-alternatives/

by haltist • 3 years ago

121 112 3 years ago

oceanconservancy.org

stevenpetryk• 3 years ago

Feels truly irreversible, save moving to a new earth.

seydor• 3 years ago

life adapts to plastic

riku_iki3• 3 years ago

or maybe all species will start getting sick and die one day because of microplastics contamination.

Some bacteria will survive.

fnordpiglet3• 3 years ago

I think the idea we have this highly dense energy source pervasively available across the earth in all biomes with an exposed surface area that is unfathomable, life will adapt to consume that source of carbon rich energy. I suspect we may be bringing the end of the age of plastics rapidly.

gigglesupstairs• 3 years ago

Is there any research being done on how our bodies are “hopefully” learning to adapt to this omnipresence of plastics everywhere in and around us?

ethanbond4• 3 years ago

People tend to care disproportionately about human life. We don’t actually know whether we’ll adapt at the pace required to overcome widespread plastic contamination (or really whether we even need to adapt).

Policy-by-platitude is a bad strategy.

philipkglass2• 3 years ago

Plastic gets consumed by oceanic microorganisms, though slowly. Take a look at the fascinating microscopic images of plastic partially eaten by microorganisms in this 2013 research article, "Life in the Plastisphere: Microbial Communities on Plastic Marine Debris":

http://onemoregeneration.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Life...

Plastics also break down to simpler hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide with prolonged exposure to sunlight. Unfortunately, these gaseous small molecules are greenhouse gases, but they don't persist for as long.

"Production of methane and ethylene from plastic in the environment"

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

charliebwrites2• 3 years ago

So what do we do about them?

Is there any way to remove microplastics from a person/animal once already ingested?

What technology if any is being worked on to help alleviate this?

david422• 3 years ago

Hope we don't get cancer. Become vegetarian.

stcg• 3 years ago

I don't think becoming vegetarian helps. From the article:

The study found evidence that food processing is a likely source of microplastic contamination, as highly processed protein products (like fish sticks, chicken nuggets, tofu, and plant-based burgers, among others) contained significantly more microplastics per gram than minimally processed products (items like packaged wild Alaska pollock, raw chicken breast, and others).

Note the tofu and plant-based burgers.

epistasis6• 3 years ago

Stop driving? Most microplastic in water come from tires.

I've been trying to make small moves away from car infrastructure in my town and the response is, well, less than positive.

We already tacitly accept that cars are one of the biggest causes of death. Reducing car infrastructure to reduce microplastics, where we don't even really know the harm, seems far far more challenging.

anonymous_pro_• 3 years ago

What town is that? It seems like the success of diversifying away from cars depends on the place and how it grew. LA, for example, grew at the time of peak automobile infrastructure investment and it's basically unrecoverable at this point. There are probably other reasons why places like LA are so locked in to cars now, but that's the one that seems obvious to me.

Solvency4• 3 years ago

Not just tires. Your clothes being washed.

tppiotrowski2• 3 years ago

I think of tires as being made of rubber. Where does the plastic come from?

olalonde2• 3 years ago

Stop driving?

Not a realistic solution. The vast majority of people will take the microplastics over not driving.

ahazred8ta• 3 years ago

No. Most microplastic in water comes from washing machines. Synthetic fibers from clothes.

ironmagma2• 3 years ago

Stopping driving is only the beginning. Much more impactful would be to reduce the overall population's driving through legislation/taxation.

Reason0772• 3 years ago

”Most microplastic in water come from tires.”

And also synthetic clothes. According to the study they found more plastic fibres than plastic particles in many samples.

These get released when you launder your clothes, ending up in the drain water and ultimately the ocean.

Solution? Buy clothes with natural fibres (cotton, wool, etc) instead of plastics. And wash your clothes in a modern washing machine with a microfibre filter on its drain outlet.

polski-g4• 3 years ago

If you donate blood as soon as possible from your last blood donation (per federal regulations), you can remove 50% of your microplastic content per year. Some studies have also shown that going to saunas/sweat lodges also lower your microplastic content.

charliebwrites2• 3 years ago

Interesting, so we’ve shown it’s possible to _sweat_ out micro plastics in a sauna?

philipkglass2• 3 years ago

The article only reports number of microplastics without reporting mass. This is particularly difficult to interpret when fibers are responsible for so much of the total:

Notably, across all samples, nearly half (44%) of the identified microplastics were fibers, which is consistent with other studies suggesting that fibers are the most prevalent form of microplastic in the environment.

Are 4 fibers of 50 micron length 4 times more dangerous than one 200 micron long fiber? There's no discussion of it in the article, but reporting microplastics by number of countable particles carries that implication.

tppiotrowski2• 3 years ago

I wonder how much of this stuff we inhale from our dryer exhaust when washing outdoor/athletic wear? I used the lint from my dryer as a fire-starter once and it definitely smelled like burning plastic.

corytheboyd3• 3 years ago

I have done zero research, am not at all qualified to say any such things… but I feel like microplastics will eventually be looked back on the way we look back on asbestos today. “People used to throw PLASTIC in the ocean?!” We are in that awkward period of being aware, yet the damage has been done, so now we wait for the long-term effects to manifest.

Again, probably wrong, not at all an opinion to be taken as fact, just a gut feeling. History tells us that there will at least be SOMETHING perceived as normal today that is later discovered to be not okay, anyway. Plastic, social media, hell, maybe even EV after 50 years of batteries rotting in landfills.

disney• 3 years ago

I have done zero research, am not at all qualified to say any such things… but

Always a great way to start a sentence. (Intended in jest.)

corytheboyd3• 3 years ago

The silly preambles that you have to rattle off when commenting on the internet, because everything you say can and will be taken out of context :p

epistasis6• 3 years ago

Perhaps, but we really don't know the harm.

And if the exposure is as universal as it sounds, then we can place some upper bounds on the amount of harm. With asbestos, the exposure was somewhat limited, but had greater consewuences. With plastics, we are all getting it.

ethanbond4• 3 years ago

What upper bounds? One of the higher-confidence hypotheses of the effects of plastic contamination is reproductive disruption. Since these plastics bioaccumulate and pass from mother to child, there’s reason to worry about intergenerational accrual of reproductive damage.

So as far as I can tell, the “upper bound” of harm is reproductive collapse of our species?

riku_iki3• 3 years ago

we have robust replacement for asbestos, but not clear if we will get replacement for plastic..

corytheboyd3• 3 years ago

Yeah it’s wild, plastic is so ubiquitous and amazingly useful that I don’t see it ever going away.

My guess is that it is never replaced, and instead, we will pour time and money into treating whatever (if any) issues microplastic consumption cause instead. Theorizing for fun, it’s pretty bleak though hah

polski-g4• 3 years ago

We have lots of replacements for plastic, what we used before plastic: Metal lunch boxes, metal cups, metal piping, etc

Solvency4• 3 years ago

If this has been happening for decades, why are lifespans still increasing, why are average heights of new generations increasing, etc?

I know PFAS are hormonal disrupters in research but it seems like most people are doing... just fine?

Ryan_IRL• 3 years ago

We might be doing fine on average, despite it. Yet, there are seemingly links to autoimmune diseases and cancers, and still more research to do.

So maybe a good % of the population could be doing more fine without the micro plastics?

adamweld• 3 years ago

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tab...

chrisamiller• 3 years ago

Are you claiming that declining fertility is due to plastic, rather than to increasing wealth, education of women, and access to contraception? If so, then I'm going to have to ask you for a) a source and b) a plausible mechanism.

mandmandam• 3 years ago

why are lifespans still increasing

We are burning huge amounts of fossil fuels to run the economy. This economic boon leads to longer lifetimes, at a huge but externalized and delayed cost.

it seems like most people are doing... just fine?

Where do you live?

Outside of affluent areas, I think most people these days would laugh at such an absurd claim. We are not fine, physically or mentally.

Our soil isn't fine. Our air isn't fine. Our water isn't fine - not our wells, our rivers, our lakes, our oceans, or even our icecaps. Our species are being made extinct at 1000x the background rate of extinction. Anyone fine with this is on the ignorant side of blissful.

Solvency4• 3 years ago

I agree fully with you. And I've read Kiss The Ground. Twice.

But certain biomarkers in average are oddly doing ok. It's weird.

Solvency4• 3 years ago

The age-standardized death rate from cancer has declined by 15% since 1990.

https://ourworldindata.org/cancer

tmccrary55• 3 years ago

Makes me think of scifi.

What if there's some kind of plastic cliff that most species in the universe don't survive?

We worry about virus epidemics, global warming, asteroids, etc.

Arrath• 3 years ago

Fitting venue for the "two astronauts, always has been" genre of meme.

ProfessorLayton• 3 years ago

Notably, across all samples, nearly half (44%) of the identified microplastics were fibers, which is consistent with other studies suggesting that fibers are the most prevalent form of microplastic in the environment.

Seems like one could live on a vegan diet and still be consuming a lot of plastic fiber. My favorite blankets, rugs, and t-shirts are all 100% polyester.

Even if I managed to use avoid plastics at home, plastic lint is everywhere in public too.

jwells89• 3 years ago

Avoiding synthetics in clothing is indeed difficult. I buy 100% natural fibers where I can, but sadly often the best one can do is ~90% natural ~10% synthetic.

somewhereoutth• 3 years ago

100% cotton would seem to be widely available? Certainly for shirts, t-shirts, jumpers, trousers, socks. I don't wear anything other than cotton really for those items.

For some reason they have started putting stretchy stuff into cotton jeans - maybe style, or maybe (my pet theory) that good quality cotton is no longer economic for jean production, and so they have to use rougher cotton, which needs the stretchy stuff to be comfortable enough to wear.

Maken• 3 years ago

100% cotton shirts and pants are not that rare.

TSiege• 3 years ago

An even stranger but annoying problem is even if you buy 100% cotton, the stitching is usually a polyester. It is difficult to buy cotton threads for home sewing

rhplus• 3 years ago

Can someone ELI5 this for me: how would microplastics passing through a digestive system end up in "proteins*"? Are they being stored directly in the fats, within cells, between muscle fibers...?

(* the article seems to be using the term "protein" in the culinary sense, not the molecular sense).

toomuchtodo• 3 years ago

You know how mercury bioaccumulates up the food chain? It looks like microplastics are similar [1] [2], and they are everywhere in the food web [3]. It's even in the bottled water [4].

[1] https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/08/30/microplastics-could...

[2] https://www.uri.edu/news/2023/08/microplastics-infiltrate-al...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38917410

(edit: yes, yes, no surprise it's in the bottled water, maybe we shouldn't be selling bottled water if it's full of microplastics? Less bottled water, more water dispensers everywhere)

everdrive• 3 years ago

It's _especially_ in the bottled water.

louthy• 3 years ago

It's even in the bottled water

The bottled water that comes in plastic bottles? Not that surprising?

stevenwoo• 3 years ago

There was another posting within the last few months that showed the particular microplastic they studied fit into the same ‘lock’ per lock/key of a biological molecule interaction and prevented the desired molecules from working together. It could be that or a different mechanism. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38322944

jampekka• 3 years ago

Plastics, let alone microplastics, are a rather small problem that seem to get a lot of airspace.

There are no established health effects of microplastics. There are magnitudes worse health problems in e.g. both under and overnutrition that cause a lot less panic and fuss.

https://www.undp.org/kosovo/blog/microplastics-human-health-...

CharlesW• 3 years ago

There are no established health effects of microplastics.

It'd be more true to say, "There are no established significant health effects of microplastics on humans." FWIW, the article you linked to doesn't say "no effects", but "limited evidence for significant adverse health impacts".

This seems concerning: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9885170/

appplication• 3 years ago

When reading research papers, ‘significant’ is usually meant to mean ‘statistically correlated’ which varies from our typical lay definition of ‘very impactful’, which would be described using the term ‘effect size’

broscillator• 3 years ago

A lot of issues like you mention can be a big problem on the population level, but not in an individual level if you're conscious of what you eat. This doesn't seem to be the case with microplastics, they seem to be in everything.

You might call it panic to minimize it, and you'd be right to do so if we here were in charge of nutrition for a population; but I'm guessing most of us are in charge of our own nutrition and maybe a family's, so the information to deal with that is pretty valuable.

s1gnp0st• 3 years ago

This is an outright lie. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35399297/

RyEgswuCsn• 3 years ago

Just be patient. It takes some time for academic influencers to start jumping on the bandwagon.

rdsubhas2• 3 years ago

Over/under nutrition is locally controllable.

Micro plastics is like CO2. Spread out everywhere, can't be sequestered or reversed.

Rather than saying it's not a problem now — it's worth saying what's the threshold beyond which health complications begin (that number can't be infinity), and based on current growth levels how far we're off from it. If that's like at current rate of growth we still have 5000 years, then yeah I would agree with you and ignore the news. But just saying retrogressively that there is no conclusive evidence based on what we're eating so far – unfortunately sounds only politically correct, without considering the spirit of doing science (exploring the horizons / where the limits are).

ramblenode• 3 years ago

There are no established health effects of microplastics.

An equally true statement is that there is no established safe concentration of microplastics in tissue.

thereddaikon6• 3 years ago

Have we been able to link any real harm to microplastics? I know it sounds bad intuitively. But can we draw a link to any diseases? What if this just amounts to fear mongering?

haltist6• 3 years ago

Children are now born with plastic in their veins so we'll know soon enough what happens to these children based on their health outcomes.

thereddaikon6• 3 years ago

We've had mass use plastic for decades. Baby boomers were likely born with plastic in their veins. I certainly was.

bowmessage• 3 years ago

If, like me, your first question was "Which protein should I eat more of to avoid microplastics?", you can find the study's results graphed here: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S02697491230223...

evrimoztamur• 3 years ago

The graph makes sense to me, processed (plant-based or factory-breaded) and shrimp seem to be the main ones. Buy fresh and you’ll be alright is what I read from this.

ComplexSystems• 3 years ago

I sometimes have this feeling that in the future, when all of the science on this stuff is well established, our future enlightened society will simply take the view that plastic is poisonous. I think it'll be the same way that we think of lead, mercury, etc: like "wash your hands if you touch the stuff" levels of poisonous. I would not be surprised if society makes this shift in the next 20-30 years. Some of the recent results are really nuts:

- You eat a credit card sized amount of plastic every week: https://nautil.us/you-eat-a-credits-card-worth-of-plastic-ev... - 93% of bottled water has plastic in it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16793888 - Plastic containers, even "safe" ones, release plastic into food: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36532812 - Car tires are depositing plastic everywhere, including oceans: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37726539

It goes on and on. There are studies showing it gets into the placenta, harms animals, affects behavior, stays in your system forever, bioaccumulates all the way up the food chain and makes its way into every organ, and so on. This is all within the last few years. It seems like bottled water is a vector for this stuff very similar to lead pipes, and tires are a vector similar to leaded gasoline, and that the evidence is basically all there and all that is needed is a big epidemiological "smoking gun" study to put it all together.

Of course not every single thing one could possibly call "plastic" need be equally unsafe. Probably some better plastic will be devised which is safer for use in tires and etc. Still, I think there will be a society-wide push against so-called "plastic", in general. People will probably push to replace everything made of plastic with something else: replacing saran wrap with parchment paper, Tupperware with glass, etc.

I'm not super interested in defending this rigorously as it's really just a hunch, but I'm curious if this is what happens.

serf• 3 years ago

I sometimes have this feeling that in the future, when all of the science on this stuff is well established, our future enlightened society will simply take the view that plastic is poisonous. I think it'll be the same way that we think of lead, mercury, etc

I don't.

The effects of lead or mercury poisoning are fast-acting and obvious. All the links you provided talk about the release of plastics into the world, but the details on how that affects things are sketchier than say , mercury poisoning , because the symptoms are slowly accruing and ambiguous compared to lots of other environmental contaminants.

I agree we should do something about it.

lgleason• 3 years ago

On one hand, plastic reduces weight, transportation costs and the costs of things and is more versatile. On the other hand it causes another form of pollution. Modern life would be very different without plastic.

rdsubhas2• 3 years ago

Instead of looking for evidence of consumption risk at current/past levels — it would be good to know: what is the threshold of continuous daily ingestion beyond which microplastics are harmful. The answer can't be infinity of course, so it would be worth finding the threshold, and then how far we're off from that threshold based on current growth.

Not suggesting to have humans consume concentrated concoctions of plastics, but however ethically science allows.

Study Finds Microplastics in Nearly 90% of Proteins Sampled

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