Microplastics are in our brains. How worried should I be?
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Plastic is in our clothes, cars, mobile phones, water bottles and food containers. But recent research adds to growing concerns about the impact of tiny plastic fragments on our health.
A study from the United States has, for the first time, found microplastics in human brains. The study, which has yet to be independently verified by other scientists, has been described in the media as scary, shocking and alarming.
But what exactly are microplastics? What do they mean for our health? Should we be concerned?
What are microplastics? Can you see them?
We often consider plastic items to be indestructible. But plastic breaks down into smaller particles. Definitions vary but generally microplastics are smaller than five millimetres.
This makes some too small to be seen with the naked eye. So, many of the images the media uses to illustrate articles about microplastics are misleading, as some show much larger, clearly visible pieces.
Microplastics have been reported in many sources of drinking water and everyday food items. This means we are constantly exposed to them in our diet.
Such widespread, chronic (long-term) exposure makes this a serious concern for human health. While research investigating the potential risk microplastics pose to our health is limited, it is growing.
How about this latest study?
The study looked at concentrations of microplastics in 51 samples from men and women set aside from routine autopsies in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Samples were from the liver, kidney and brain.
These tiny particles are difficult to study due to their size, even with a high-powered microscope. So rather than trying to see them, researchers are beginning to use complex instruments that identify the chemical composition of microplastics in a sample. This is the technique used in this study.
The researchers were surprised to find up to 30 times more microplastics in brain samples than in the liver and kidney.
They hypothesised this could be due to high blood flow to the brain (carrying plastic particles with it). Alternatively, the liver and kidneys might be better suited to dealing with external toxins and particles. We also know the brain does not undergo the same amount of cellular renewal as other organs in the body, which could make the plastics linger here.
The researchers also found the amount of plastics in brain samples increased by about 50% between 2016 and 2024. This may reflect the rise in environmental plastic pollution and increased human exposure.
The microplastics found in this study were mostly composed of polyethylene. This is the most commonly produced plastic in the world and is used for many everyday products, such as bottle caps and plastic bags.
This is the first time microplastics have been found in human brains, which is important. However, this study is a “pre-print”, so other independent microplastics researchers haven’t yet reviewed or validated the study.
How do microplastics end up in the brain?
Microplastics typically enter the body through contaminated food and water. This can disrupt the gut microbiome (the community of microbes in your gut) and cause inflammation. This leads to effects in the whole body via the immune system and the complex, two-way communication system between the gut and the brain. This so-called gut-brain axis is implicated in many aspects of health and disease.
We can also breathe in airborne microplastics. Once these particles are in the gut or lungs, they can move into the bloodstream and then travel around the body into various organs.
Studies have found microplastics in human faeces, joints, livers, reproductive organs, blood, vessels and hearts.
Microplastics also migrate to the brains of wild fish. In mouse studies, ingested microplastics are absorbed from the gut into the blood and can enter the brain, becoming lodged in other organs along the way.
To get into brain tissue, microplastics must cross the blood-brain-barrier, an intricate layer of cells that is supposed to keep things in the blood from entering the brain.
Although concerning, this is not surprising, as microplastics must cross similar cell barriers to enter the urine, testes and placenta, where they have already been found in humans.
Is this a health concern?
We don’t yet know the effects of microplastics in the human brain. Some laboratory experiments suggest microplastics increase brain inflammation and cell damage, alter gene expression and change brain structure.
Aside from the effects of the microplastic particles themselves, microplastics might also pose risks if they carry environmental toxins or bacteria into and around the body.
Various plastic chemicals could also leach out of the microplastics into the body. These include the famous hormone-disrupting chemicals known as BPAs.
But microplastics and their effects are difficult to study. In addition to their small size, there are so many different types of plastics in the environment. More than 13,000 different chemicals have been identified in plastic products, with more being developed every year.
Microplastics are also weathered by the environment and digestive processes, and this is hard to reproduce in the lab.
A goal of our research is to understand how these factors change the way microplastics behave in the body. We plan to investigate if improving the integrity of the gut barrier through diet or probiotics can prevent the uptake of microplastics from the gut into the bloodstream. This may effectively stop the particles from circulating around the body and lodging into organs.
How do I minimise my exposure?
Microplastics are widespread in the environment, and it’s difficult to avoid exposure. We are just beginning to understand how microplastics can affect our health.
Until we have more scientific evidence, the best thing we can do is reduce our exposure to plastics where we can and produce less plastic waste, so less ends up in the environment.
An easy place to start is to avoid foods and drinks packaged in single-use plastic or reheated in plastic containers. We can also minimise exposure to synthetic fibres in our home and clothing.
Sarah Hellewell, Senior Research Fellow, The Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science, and Research Fellow, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University; Anastazja Gorecki, Teaching & Research Scholar, School of Health Sciences, University of Notre Dame Australia, and Charlotte Sofield, PhD Candidate, studying microplastics and gut/brain health, University of Notre Dame Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Apples vs Carrots – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing apples to carrots, we picked the carrots.
Why?
Both are sweet crunchy snacks, both rightly considered very healthy options, but one comes out clearly on top…
Both contain lots of antioxidants, albeit mostly different ones. They’re both good for this.
Looking at their macros, however, apples have more carbs while carrots have more fiber. The carb:fiber ratio in apples is already sufficient to make them very healthy, but carrots do win.
In the category of vitamins, carrots have many times more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, C, E, K, and choline. Apples are not higher in any vitamins.
In terms of minerals, carrots have a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Apples are not higher in any minerals.
If “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, what might a carrot a day do?
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Sugar: From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose C’s
Take care!
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To tackle gendered violence, we also need to look at drugs, trauma and mental health
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After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years to address men’s violence towards women. This includes up to $5,000 to support those escaping violent relationships.
However, to reduce and prevent gender-based and intimate partner violence we also need to address the root causes and contributors. These include alcohol and other drugs, trauma and mental health issues.
Why is this crucial?
The World Health Organization estimates 30% of women globally have experienced intimate partner violence, gender-based violence or both. In Australia, 27% of women have experienced intimate partner violence by a co-habiting partner; almost 40% of Australian children are exposed to domestic violence.
By gender-based violence we mean violence or intentionally harmful behaviour directed at someone due to their gender. But intimate partner violence specifically refers to violence and abuse occurring between current (or former) romantic partners. Domestic violence can extend beyond intimate partners, to include other family members.
These statistics highlight the urgent need to address not just the aftermath of such violence, but also its roots, including the experiences and behaviours of perpetrators.
What’s the link with mental health, trauma and drugs?
The relationships between mental illness, drug use, traumatic experiences and violence are complex.
When we look specifically at the link between mental illness and violence, most people with mental illness will not become violent. But there is evidence people with serious mental illness can be more likely to become violent.
The use of alcohol and other drugs also increases the risk of domestic violence, including intimate partner violence.
About one in three intimate partner violence incidents involve alcohol. These are more likely to result in physical injury and hospitalisation. The risk of perpetrating violence is even higher for people with mental ill health who are also using alcohol or other drugs.
It’s also important to consider traumatic experiences. Most people who experience trauma do not commit violent acts, but there are high rates of trauma among people who become violent.
For example, experiences of childhood trauma (such as witnessing physical abuse) can increase the risk of perpetrating domestic violence as an adult.
Childhood trauma can leave its mark on adults years later. Roman Yanushevsky/Shutterstock Early traumatic experiences can affect the brain and body’s stress response, leading to heightened fear and perception of threat, and difficulty regulating emotions. This can result in aggressive responses when faced with conflict or stress.
This response to stress increases the risk of alcohol and drug problems, developing PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and increases the risk of perpetrating intimate partner violence.
How can we address these overlapping issues?
We can reduce intimate partner violence by addressing these overlapping issues and tackling the root causes and contributors.
The early intervention and treatment of mental illness, trauma (including PTSD), and alcohol and other drug use, could help reduce violence. So extra investment for these are needed. We also need more investment to prevent mental health issues, and preventing alcohol and drug use disorders from developing in the first place.
Early intervention and treatment of mental illness, trauma and drug use is important. Okrasiuk/Shutterstock Preventing trauma from occuring and supporting those exposed is crucial to end what can often become a vicious cycle of intergenerational trauma and violence. Safe and supportive environments and relationships can protect children against mental health problems or further violence as they grow up and engage in their own intimate relationships.
We also need to acknowledge the widespread impact of trauma and its effects on mental health, drug use and violence. This needs to be integrated into policies and practices to reduce re-traumatising individuals.
How about programs for perpetrators?
Most existing standard intervention programs for perpetrators do not consider the links between trauma, mental health and perpetrating intimate partner violence. Such programs tend to have little or mixed effects on the behaviour of perpetrators.
But we could improve these programs with a coordinated approach including treating mental illness, drug use and trauma at the same time.
Such “multicomponent” programs show promise in meaningfully reducing violent behaviour. However, we need more rigorous and large-scale evaluations of how well they work.
What needs to happen next?
Supporting victim-survivors and improving interventions for perpetrators are both needed. However, intervening once violence has occurred is arguably too late.
We need to direct our efforts towards broader, holistic approaches to prevent and reduce intimate partner violence, including addressing the underlying contributors to violence we’ve outlined.
We also need to look more widely at preventing intimate partner violence and gendered violence.
We need developmentally appropriate education and skills-based programs for adolescents to prevent the emergence of unhealthy relationship patterns before they become established.
We also need to address the social determinants of health that contribute to violence. This includes improving access to affordable housing, employment opportunities and accessible health-care support and treatment options.
All these will be critical if we are to break the cycle of intimate partner violence and improve outcomes for victim-survivors.
The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency, call 000.
Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney; Lucinda Grummitt, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney, and Steph Kershaw, Research Fellow, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Body Is Not an Apology – by Sonya Renee Taylor
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First, a couple of things that this book is not about:
- Self-confidence (it’s about more than merely thinking highly of oneself)
- Self-acceptance (it’s about more than merely settling for “good enough”)
In contrast, it’s about loving and celebrating what is, while striving for better, for oneself and for others.
You may be wondering: whence this “radical” in the title?
The author argues that often, the problem with our bodies is not actually our bodies. If we have cancer, or diabetes, then sure, that’s a problem with the body. But most of the time, the “problem with our bodies” is simply society’s rejection of our “imperfect” bodies as somehow “less than”, and something we must invest time and money to correct. Hence, the need for a radical uprooting of ideas, to fix the real problem.
Bottom line: if, like most of us, you have a body that would not entirely pass for that of a Marvel Comics superhero, this is a book for you. And if you do have a MCU body? This is also a book for you, because we have bad news for you about what happens with age.
Click here to check out The Body Is Not An Apology, and appreciate more about yours!
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The Snooze-Button Controversy
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To Snooze Or Not To Snooze? (Science Has Answers)
This is Dr. Jennifer Kanaan. She’s a medical doctor with a focus on pulmonary critical care, sleep disorders, and sleep medicine.
What does she want to tell us?
She wants us to be wary of the many news articles that have jumped on a certain recent sleep study, such as:
- Is hitting the snooze button really a bad idea? Study sheds light on the impact of morning alarms on sleep and cognition
- Hitting Snooze May Help You Feel Less Sleepy and More Alert, Research Says
- Is it okay to press the snooze button?
- Hitting Snooze May Help You Feel Less Sleepy and More Alert, Research Says
- Hitting the snooze button on your alarm doesn’t make you more tired
For the curious, here is the paper itself, by Dr. Tina Sundelin et al. It’s actually two studies, by the way, but one paper:
The authors of this study concluded:
❝There were no clear effects of snoozing on the cortisol awakening response, morning sleepiness, mood, or overnight sleep architecture.
A brief snooze period may thus help alleviate sleep inertia, without substantially disturbing sleep, for late chronotypes and those with morning drowsiness.❞
Notably, people tend to snooze because an alarm clock will, if not “smart” about it, wake us up mid sleep-cycle more often than not, and that will produce a short “sleep hangover”. By snoozing, we are basically re-rolling the dice on being woken up between sleep cycles, and thus feeling more refreshed.
What’s Dr. Kanaan’s counterpoint?
Dr. Kanaan says:
❝If you’re coming in and out of sleep for 30 minutes, after the alarm goes off the first time, you’re costing yourself 30 minutes of uninterrupted, quality, restorative sleep. This study doesn’t change that fact.❞
She advises that rather than snoozing, we should prioritize getting good sleep in the first place, and once we do wake up, mid sleep-cycle or not, get sunlight. That way, our brain will start promptly scrubbing melatonin and producing the appropriate wakefulness hormones instead. That means serotonin, and also a spike of cortisol.
Remember: cortisol is only bad when it’s chronically elevated. It’s fine, and even beneficial, to have a short spike of cortisol. We make it for a reason!
If you’d like to hear more from Dr. Kanaan, you might like this interview with her at the University of Connecticut:
Want the best of both worlds?
A great option to avoid getting woken in the middle of a sleep cycle, and also not needing to hit snooze, is a sunrise alarm clock. Specifics of these devices vary, but for example, the kind this writer has starts gently glowing an hour before the set alarm time,and gradually gets brighter and lighter over the course of the hour.
We don’t sell them, but here’s an example sunrise alarm clock on Amazon, for your convenience
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Biohack Your Way to Healthy Skin – by Jennifer Sun
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The author, an aesthetician with a biotech background, explains about the overlap of skin health and skin beauty, making it better from the inside first (diet and other lifestyle factors), and then tweaking things as desired from the outside.
We previous reviewed another book of hers, “Unleashing Your Best Skin”, and this time the focus is on things you can do at home—not requiring expensive salon treatments (the other book covers both approaches; this one simply skips the clinic work and instead has a lot more detail in the at-home category).
As for what she covers, it comes in categories:
- Gadgets to consider investing in, how to pick good ones, and what gadgets to avoid
- Basic skincare knowledge and practice; here we’re talking cleaners, tonics, moisturizers, and so forth
- Best topical and oral ingredients for the skin (and in contrast, ingredients to be wary of)
- Nutrition for skincare; not just “your skin needs these ingredients”, but also…
- Gut health for skincare, which gets a whole chapter just for that
- Biohacking hormones for skincare, including in the cases of various common hormone imbalances (e.g. menopause, PCOS, etc) and other complications not generally thought of in terms of skincare, such as diabetes and hypo-/hyperthyroidism.
- Circulatory health for skincare (blood and lymph)
- Mental health techniques for skincare (including improving sleep, managing stress, supplements to consider, etc).
As with her other book that we reviewed, the book is broadly aimed at women, and the section on sex-hormonal considerations is completely aimed at women, but as for the rest of the book, there’s no pressing reason why this book couldn’t benefit men too. It also addresses considerations when it comes to darker skintones, something that a lot of similar books overlook.
The style is directly instructional, albeit light and conversational in tone, and still with 20+ pages of scientific references to show that she does indeed know her stuff.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your skin health, and/but aren’t a fan of going to the salon, then this book will be an invaluable resource.
Click here to check out Biohack Your Way To Healthy Skin, and biohack your way to healthy skin!
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Avocado vs Blueberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing avocado to blueberries, we picked the avocado.
Why?
These two fruits aren’t as similar as some of the comparisons we’ve made—we often go for “can be used in the same way culinarily” comparisons. But! They are both popularly in the “superfood” category, so it’s interesting to consider:
In terms of macros, avocado has more protein, (healthy!) fat, and fiber, while blueberries have more carbs. An easy win for avocado here, unless you’re on a calorie-controlled diet perhaps, since avocado is also higher in those. About that fat; it’s mostly monounsaturated, with some polyunsaturated and saturated, and is famously a good source of omega-3 in the form of ALA.
In the category of vitamins, avocado has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, E, K, and choline, while blueberries are not higher in any vitamins. So, not a tricky decision here.
When it comes to minerals, avocado has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while blueberries are higher in manganese. Another win for avocados.
There is one other category that’s important to consider in this case, and that’s polyphenols. We’d be here all day if we listed them all, but in total, blueberries have about 1193x the polyphenol content that avocados do. Blueberries got the reputation for antioxidant properties for a reason; it is well-deserved!
So, out of the two, we declare avocado the overall more nutritious of the two, but blueberries absolutely deserve the acclaim they get also.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Give Us This Day Our Daily Dozen
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