Study links microplastics with human health problems – but there’s still a lot we don’t know
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Mark Patrick Taylor, Macquarie University and Scott P. Wilson, Macquarie University
A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health.
The study involved patients in Italy who had a condition called carotid artery plaque, where plaque builds up in arteries, potentially blocking blood flow. The researchers analysed plaque specimens from these patients.
They found those with carotid artery plaque who had microplastics and nanoplastics in their plaque had a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, or death (compared with carotid artery plaque patients who didn’t have any micro- or nanoplastics detected in their plaque specimens).
Importantly, the researchers didn’t find the micro- and nanoplastics caused the higher risk, only that it was correlated with it.
So, what are we to make of the new findings? And how does it fit with the broader evidence about microplastics in our environment and our bodies?
What are microplastics?
Microplastics are plastic particles less than five millimetres across. Nanoplastics are less than one micron in size (1,000 microns is equal to one millimetre). The precise size classifications are still a matter of debate.
Microplastics and nanoplastics are created when everyday products – including clothes, food and beverage packaging, home furnishings, plastic bags, toys and toiletries – degrade. Many personal care products contain microsplastics in the form of microbeads.
Plastic is also used widely in agriculture, and can degrade over time into microplastics and nanoplastics.
These particles are made up of common polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride. The constituent chemical of polyvinyl chloride, vinyl chloride, is considered carcinogenic by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Of course, the actual risk of harm depends on your level of exposure. As toxicologists are fond of saying, it’s the dose that makes the poison, so we need to be careful to not over-interpret emerging research.
A closer look at the study
This new study in the New England Journal of Medicine was a small cohort, initially comprising 304 patients. But only 257 completed the follow-up part of the study 34 months later.
The study had a number of limitations. The first is the findings related only to asymptomatic patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy (a procedure to remove carotid artery plaque). This means the findings might not be applicable to the wider population.
The authors also point out that while exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics has been likely increasing in recent decades, heart disease rates have been falling.
That said, the fact so many people in the study had detectable levels of microplastics in their body is notable. The researchers found detectable levels of polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride (two types of plastic) in excised carotid plaque from 58% and 12% of patients, respectively.
These patients were more likely to be younger men with diabetes or heart disease and a history of smoking. There was no substantive difference in where the patients lived.
Inflammation markers in plaque samples were more elevated in patients with detectable levels of microplastics and nanoplastics versus those without.
And, then there’s the headline finding: patients with microplastics and nanoplastics in their plaque had a higher risk of having what doctors call “a primary end point event” (non-fatal heart attack, non-fatal stroke, or death from any cause) than those who did not present with microplastics and nanoplastics in their plaque.
The authors of the study note their results “do not prove causality”.
However, it would be remiss not to be cautious. The history of environmental health is replete with examples of what were initially considered suspect chemicals that avoided proper regulation because of what the US National Research Council refers to as the “untested-chemical assumption”. This assumption arises where there is an absence of research demonstrating adverse effects, which obviates the requirement for regulatory action.
In general, more research is required to find out whether or not microplastics cause harm to human health. Until this evidence exists, we should adopt the precautionary principle; absence of evidence should not be taken as evidence of absence.
Global and local action
Exposure to microplastics in our home, work and outdoor environments is inevitable. Governments across the globe have started to acknowledge we must intervene.
The Global Plastics Treaty will be enacted by 175 nations from 2025. The treaty is designed, among other things, to limit microplastic exposure globally. Burdens are greatest especially in children and especially those in low-middle income nations.
In Australia, legislation ending single use plastics will help. So too will the increased rollout of container deposit schemes that include plastic bottles.
Microplastics pollution is an area that requires a collaborative approach between researchers, civil societies, industry and government. We believe the formation of a “microplastics national council” would help formulate and co-ordinate strategies to tackle this issue.
Little things matter. Small actions by individuals can also translate to significant overall environmental and human health benefits.
Choosing natural materials, fabrics, and utensils not made of plastic and disposing of waste thoughtfully and appropriately – including recycling wherever possible – is helpful.
Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University and Scott P. Wilson, Research Director, Australian Microplastic Assessment Project (AUSMAP); Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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When should you get the updated COVID-19 vaccine?
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Updated COVID-19 vaccines are now available: They’re meant to give you the best protection against the strain of the virus that is making people severely sick and also causing deaths.
Many people were infected during the persistent summer wave, which may leave you wondering when you should get the updated vaccine. The short answer is that it depends on when you last got infected or vaccinated and on your particular level of risk.
We heard from six experts—including medical doctors and epidemiologists—about when they recommend getting an updated vaccine. Read on to learn what they said. And to make it easy, check out the flowchart below.
A flowchart to help you decide when is the best time to get the 2024-2025 updated COVID-19 vaccine. If I was infected with COVID-19 this summer, when should I get the updated vaccine?
All the experts we spoke to agreed that if you were infected this summer, you should wait at least three months since you were infected to get vaccinated.
“Generally, an infection may be protective for about three months,” Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, tells PGN. “If they got infected three or more months ago, it is a good idea to get vaccinated sooner than later.”
This three-month rule applies if you got vaccinated over the summer, which may be the case for some immunocompromised people, adds Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
If I didn’t get infected with COVID-19 this summer, when should I get vaccinated?
Most of the experts we talked to say that if you didn’t get infected with COVID-19 this summer, you should get the vaccine as soon as possible. Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, emphasizes that if this applies to you, you should get vaccinated as soon as possible, especially given the current COVID-19 surge.
Al-Aly agrees. “Vaccine-derived immunity lasts for several months, and it should cover the winter season. Plus, the current vaccine is a KP.2-adapted vaccine, so it will work most optimally against KP.2 and related subvariants [such as] KP.3 that are circulating now,” Al-Aly says. “We don’t know when the virus will mutate to a variant that is not compatible with the KP.2 vaccine.”
Al-Aly adds that if you’d rather take the protection you can get right now, “It may make more sense to get vaccinated sooner than later.”
This especially applies if you’re over 65 or immunocompromised and you haven’t received a COVID-19 vaccine in a year or more because, as Chin-Hong adds, “that is the group that is being hospitalized and disproportionately dying now.”
Some experts—including epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, author of newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist—also say that if you’re younger than 65 and not immunocompromised, you can consider waiting and aiming to get vaccinated before Halloween to get the best protection in the winter, when we’re likely to experience another wave because of the colder weather, gathering indoors, and the holidays.
“I am more worried about the winter than the summer, so I would think of October (some time before Halloween) as the ‘Goldilocks moment’—not too early, not too late, but just right,” Chin-Hong adds. Time it “such that your antibodies peak during the winter when COVID-19 cases are expected to exceed what we are seeing this summer.”
My children are starting school—should I get them vaccinated now?
According to most experts we spoke to, now is a good time to get your children vaccinated.
Jennifer Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, adds that “with COVID-19 infection levels as high as they are and increased exposures in school,” now is a particularly good time to get an updated vaccine if people haven’t gotten COVID-19 recently.
Additionally, respiratory viruses spike when kids are back in school, so “doing everything you can to reduce your child’s risk of infection can help protect families and communities,” says epidemiologist Jessica Malaty Rivera, science communications advisor at the de Beaumont Foundation.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
(Disclosure: The de Beaumont Foundation is a partner of The Public Good Projects, the organization that owns Public Good News.)
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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The Science-Backed Anti-Inflammatory Diet for Beginners – by Dr. Yasmine Elamir & Dr. William Grist
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We have written about how to eat to beat inflammation, but what we didn’t do is include 75 recipes and a plan for building up one’s culinary repertoire around those core dishes!
That’s what this book does. It covers briefly the science of inflammation and anti-inflammatory diet, discusses experimental elimination diets (e.g. you eliminate likely culprits of triggering your inflammation, then reintroduce them one by one to see which it was), and ingredients likely to increase or decrease inflammation.
The 75 recipes are good, and/but a caveat is “yes, one of the recipes is ketchup and another is sour cream” so it’s not exactly 75 mains.
However! Where this book excels is in producing anti-inflammatory versions of commonly inflammatory dishes. That ketchup? Not sugary. The sour cream? Vegan. And so forth. We also see crispy roast potatoes, an array of desserts, and sections for popular holiday dishes too, so you will not need to be suddenly inflamed into the next dimension when it comes to festive eating.
The recipes are what the title claims them to be, “science-backed anti-inflammatory”, and that is clearly the main criterion for their inclusion. They are not by default vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, nut-free, gluten-free, etc. For this reason, all recipes are marked with such tags as “V, VG, DF, GF, EF, NF” etc as applicable.
Bottom line: we’d consider this book more of a jumping-off point than a complete repertoire, but it’s a very good jumping-off point, and will definitely get you “up and running” (there’s a 21-day meal plan, for example).
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Jackfruit vs Durian – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing jackfruit to durian, we picked the durian.
Why?
Durian may look and smell like it has come directly from Hell, but there’s a lot of goodness in there!
First, let’s talk macros: jackfruit and durian are both unusually high in protein, for fruits. That said, jackfruit does have slightly more protein—but durian has more than 2x the fiber, for only slightly more carbs, so we call this section a win for durian.
Like most fruits, these two are an abundance source of vitamins; jackfruit has more of vitamins A and E, while durian has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B9, and C. Another win for durian.
When it comes to minerals, jackfruit has more calcium, while durian has more copper, iron, manganese, phosphorus, and zinc. We don’t usually measure this one as there’s not much in most foods (unless added in artificially), but durian is also high in sulfur, specifically in “volatile sulfur compounds”, which account for some of its smell, and are—notwithstanding the alarming name—harmless. In any case, mineral content is another win for durian.
These three things add up to one big win for durian.
There is one thing to watch out for, though: durian inhibits aldehyde dehydrogenase, which the body uses to metabolize alcohol. So, we recommend you don’t drink-and-durian, as it can increase the risk of alcohol poisoning, and even if alcohol consumption is moderate, it’ll simply stay in your system for longer, doing more damage while it’s there. Of course, it is best to simply avoid drinking alcohol regardless, durian or no durian, but the above is good to know for those who do imbibe.
A final word on durians: if you haven’t had it before, or had it and it was terrible, then know: much like a banana or an avocado, durian has a rather brief “ideal ripeness” phase for eating. It should be of moderate firmness; neither tough nor squishy. It should not have discolored spikes, nor should it have little holes in, nor be leaking fluid, and it should not smell of sweat and vinegar, although it should smell like sulfurous eggs, onions, and cheese. Basically, if it smells like a cheese-and-onion omelette made in Hell, it’s probably good. If it smells like something that died and then was kept warm in someone’s armpit for a day, it’s probably not. The best way to have a good first experience with a durian is to enjoy one with someone who knows and enjoys durians, as they will be able to pick one that’s right, and will know if it’s not (durian-sellers may not necessarily have your best interests at heart, and may seek to palm off over-ripe durians on people who don’t know better).
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Take care!
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Support For Long COVID & Chronic Fatigue
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Long COVID and Chronic Fatigue
Getting COVID-19 can be very physically draining, so it’s no surprise that getting Long COVID can (and usually does) result in chronic fatigue.
But, what does this mean and what can we do about it?
What makes Long COVID “long”
Long COVID is generally defined as COVID-19 whose symptoms last longer than 28 days, but in reality the symptoms not only tend to last for much longer than that, but also, they can be quite distinct.
Here’s a large (3,762 participants) study of Long COVID, which looked at 203 symptoms:
Characterizing long COVID in an international cohort: 7 months of symptoms and their impact
Three symptoms stood at out as most prevalent:
- Chronic fatigue (CFS)
- Cognitive dysfunction
- Post-exertional malaise (PEM)
The latter means “the symptoms get worse following physical or mental exertion”.
CFS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, is also called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).
What can be done about it?
The main “thing that people do about it” is to reduce their workload to what they can do, but this is not viable for everyone. Note that work doesn’t just mean “one’s profession”, but anything that requires physical or mental energy, including:
- Childcare
- Housework
- Errand-running
- Personal hygiene/maintenance
For many, this means having to get someone else to do the things—either with support of family and friends, or by hiring help. For many who don’t have those safety nets available, this means things simply not getting done.
That seems bleak; isn’t there anything more we can do?
Doctors’ recommendations are chiefly “wait it out and hope for the best”, which is not encouraging. Some people do recover from Long COVID; for others, it so far appears it might be lifelong. We just don’t know yet.
Doctors also recommend to journal, not for the usual mental health benefits, but because that is data collection. Patients who journal about their symptoms and then discuss those symptoms with their doctors, are contributing to the “big picture” of what Long COVID and its associated ME/CFS look like.
You may notice that that’s not so much saying what doctors can do for you, so much as what you can do for doctors (and in the big picture, eventually help them help people, which might include you).
So, is there any support for individuals with Long COVID ME/CFS?
Medically, no. Not that we could find.
However! Socially, there are grassroots support networks, that may be able to offer direct assistance, or at least point individuals to useful local resources.
Grassroots initiatives include Long COVID SOS and the Patient-Led Research Collaborative.
The patient-led organization Body Politic also used to have such a group, until it shut down due to lack of funding, but they do still have a good resource list:
Click here to check out the Body Politic resource list (it has eight more specific resources)
Stay strong!
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The 7 Known Risk Factors For Dementia
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A recent UK-based survey found that…
- while nearly half of adults say dementia is the disease they fear most,
- only a third of those thought you could do anything to avoid it, and
- just 1% could name the 7 known risk factors.
Quick test
Can you name the 7 known risk factors?
Please take a moment to actually try (this kind of mental stimulation is good in any case), and count them out on your fingers (or write them down), and then…
Answer (no peeking if you haven’t listed them yet)
The 7 known risk factors are:
*drumroll please*
- Smoking
- High blood pressure
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Depression
- Lack of mental stimulation
- Lack of physical activity
How many did you get? If you got them all, well done. If not, then well, now you know, so that’s good.
Did you come here from our “Future-Proof Your Brain” article? If so, you can get back to it here ← and if you didn’t, you should check it out anyway; it’s worth it😉
Take care!
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The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
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Take Your Mental Health As Seriously As General Health!
Sometimes, health and productivity means excelling—sometimes, it means avoiding illness and unproductivity. Both are essential, and today we’re going to tackle some ground-up stuff. If you don’t need it right now, great; we suggest to read it for when and if you do. But how likely is it that you will?
- One in four of us are affected by serious mental health issues in any given year.
- One in five of us have suicidal thoughts at some point in our lifetime.
- One in six of us are affected to at least some extent by the most commonly-reported mental health issues, anxiety and depression, in any given week.
…and that’s just what’s reported, of course. These stats are from a UK-based source but can be considered indicative generally. Jokes aside, the UK is not a special case and is not measurably worse for people’s mental health than, say, the US or Canada.
While this is not an inherently cheery topic, we think it’s an important one.
Depression, which we’re going to focus on today, is very very much a killer to both health and productivity, after all.
One of the most commonly-used measures of depression is known by the snappy name of “PHQ9”. It stands for “Patient Health Questionnaire Nine”, and you can take it anonymously online for free (without signing up for anything; it’s right there on the page already):
Take The PHQ9 Test Here! (under 2 minutes, immediate results)
There’s a chance you took that test and your score was, well, depressing. There’s also a chance you’re doing just peachy, or maybe somewhere in between. PHQ9 scores can fluctuate over time (because they focus on the past two weeks, and also rely on self-reports in the moment), so you might want to bookmark it to test again periodically. It can be interesting to track over time.
In the event that you’re struggling (or: in case one day you find yourself struggling, or want to be able to support a loved one who is struggling), some top tips that are useful:
Accept that it’s a medical condition like any other
Which means some important things:
- You/they are not lazy or otherwise being a bad person by being depressed
- You/they will probably get better at some point, especially if help is available
- You/they cannot, however, “just snap out of it”; illness doesn’t work that way
- Medication might help (it also might not)
Do what you can, how you can, when you can
Everyone knows the advice to exercise as a remedy for depression, and indeed, exercise helps many. Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy.
Did you ever see the 80s kids’ movie “The Neverending Story”? There’s a scene in which the young hero Atreyu must traverse the “Swamp of Sadness”, and while he has a magical talisman that protects him, his beloved horse Artax is not so lucky; he slows down, and eventually stops still, sinking slowly into the swamp. Atreyu pulls at him and begs him to keep going, but—despite being many times bigger and stronger than Atreyu, the horse just sinks into the swamp, literally drowning in despair.
See the scene: The Neverending Story movie clip – Artax and the Swamp of Sadness (1984)
Wow, they really don’t make kids’ movies like they used to, do they?
But, depression is very much like that, and advice “exercise to feel less depressed!” falls short of actually being helpful, when one is too depressed to do it.
If you’re in the position of supporting someone who’s depressed, the best tool in your toolbox will be not “here’s why you should do this” (they don’t care; not because they’re an uncaring person by nature, but because they are physiologically impeded from caring about themself at this time), but rather:
“please do this with me”
The reason this has a better chance of working is because the depressed person will in all likelihood be unable to care enough to raise and/or maintain an objection, and while they can’t remember why they should care about themself, they’re more likely to remember that they should care about you, and so will go with your want/need more easily than with their own. It’s not a magic bullet, but it’s worth a shot.
What if I’m the depressed person, though?
Honestly, the same, if there’s someone around you that you do care about; do what you can to look after you, for them, if that means you can find some extra motivation.
But I’m all alone… what now?
Firstly, you don’t have to be alone. There are free services that you can access, for example:
- US: https://nami.org/help
- Canada: https://www.wellnesstogether.ca/en-CA
- UK: https://www.samaritans.org/
…which varyingly offer advice, free phone services, webchats, and the like.
But also, there are ways you can look after yourself a little bit; do the things you’d advise someone else to do, even if you’re sure they won’t work:
- Take a little walk around the block
- Put the lights on when you’re not sleeping
- For that matter, get out of bed when you’re not sleeping. Literally lie on the floor if necessary, but change your location.
- Change your bedding, or at least your clothes
- If changing the bedding is too much, change just the pillowcase
- If changing your clothes is too much, change just one item of clothing
- Drink some water; it won’t magically cure you, but you’ll be in slightly better order
- On the topic of water, splash some on your face, if showering/bathing is too much right now
- Do something creative (that’s not self-harm). You may scoff at the notion of “art therapy” helping, but this is a way to get at least some of the lights on in areas of your brain that are a little dark right now. Worst case scenario is it’ll be a distraction from your problems, so give it a try.
- Find a connection to community—whatever that means to you—even if you don’t feel you can join it right now. Discover that there are people out there who would welcome you if you were able to go join them. Maybe one day you will!
- Hiding from the world? That’s probably not healthy, but while you’re hiding, take the time to read those books (write those books, if you’re so inclined), learn that new language, take up chess, take up baking, whatever. If you can find something that means anything to you, go with that for now, ride that wave. Motivation’s hard to come by during depression and you might let many things slide; you might as well get something out of this period if you can.
If you’re not depressed right now but you know you’re predisposed to such / can slip that way?
Write yourself instructions now. Copy the above list if you like.
Most of all: have a “things to do when I don’t feel like doing anything” list.
If you only take one piece of advice from today’s newsletter, let that one be it!
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