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Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers

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Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers

#331

Post by defatigable »

goodpoint wrote: post #242
defatigable wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My basic mental model is that my body is constantly consuming chemicals that it doesn't use, be it particulates in the air or substances in the foods I eat or drink. My body is very good at incorporating the substances that it finds useful and ignoring (or killing) the ones that it doesn't, so I don't find myself worrying too much about any particular substance it might take up. To your point, I don't have any partic…

Your mental model is plain wrong. Humans are not "very good" at ignoring lead, asbestos, particulate, radiations, nox...

Most things my body consumes (even the ones it doesn't use) don't fall in to that category. And most of what you're describing our bodies are very good at ignoring. I'm bathed in radiation constantly and I'm fine (unless I stay out in the sun too long without sunscreen...). I wouldn't want to live in a house with asbestos or lead paint, but I wouldn't be too bothered visiting a friend who lived in one. And so on.

It may absolutely be that nanoparticles of plastic are so harmful that eating off of plastic plates is a really bad idea, but my heuristic would be to not worry too much about it.

Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers

#332

Post by cowl »

john-radio wrote: post #268
sfn42 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drinking a shitload of water can kill you, not drinking water will certainly kill you. In fact having a shitload of just about anything is likely to harm or kill you. Unrealistically high doses imply absolutely nothing about lower doses.

This comment is unhelpful; the person you're replying to clearly is not claiming that "absolutely everything that's harmful in large doses is harmful in small doses." > Unrealistically high doses imply absolutely nothing about lower doses. The example they give of nuclear radiation is a clear illustration of how a useful hint can be drawn from the high-level example of harm, a pattern which microplastics might very w…

But it's not actually a clear illustration. Quite the opposite of it. We are all (no exception) at all times exposed to radiation (And this is not something recent or man-made, we are exposed to natural radiation all the time). So his Assertion that High-level -> harm means low level -> harm is clearly False without specifying a threshold where this happens.

Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers

#333

Post by cowl »

nucleardog wrote: post #217
Dalewyn wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't frame it as "harmless", but it is probably accurate to say any harm is insignificant at worst.

If it's a single, acute exposure sure. I'm no doctor or microbiologist or anything, but there definitely seems to be a strong connection between "things that cause cellular damage" and "increased risk of cancer with long term exposure".

We don't know if it can be a long term exposure. We don't know at what rate they are expelled from a live person. And One thing is for sure. Cell Death that this experiment showed off at the unreasonbly hight concentration is still quite the opposite of Cancer. Cancer is Uncontrolled cell multiplication not death. So according to this we could use nanaplastics to kill cancer. See How easy it is to draw any conclussion that you want if you forget to factor the real conditions?

Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers

#334

Post by cowl »

aziaziazi wrote: post #152
devjab wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn’t have to experiment on children as such. You can follow children who were Brest fed and children who were bottle fed and compare the two. It’s sort of a worrying study for me personally. Because bottle feeding only really works so well because you can microwave, both for cleaning and for heating, modern bottles so easily. If you have to go back to glass containers it’ll be a literal nightmare for most par…

Not a parent, but curious: can’t you microwave glass booties ? I do microwave water in glass and don’t see problems. Is it the fragility of the glass ? In that case I guess any fabric protection can solve it ?

What makes you think glass is safer in that regard?

See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277241662..., (Micro/nano glass pollution as an emerging pollutant in near future)

Now microplastics is all the rage so you see these studies, next you will see Micro-X whatever it is. The fact is that this is a headline grabbing study without any meaning and that did not show anything actually. They even say it in their study (but this does nto make headlines) that the study does not show at what concentration microplastics become a problem, just that at very unreasonably high concentrations they used it caoused cell death in petry cells. Almost Everything will cause cell damage at very high concentrations

Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers

#336

Post by rcme »

defatigable wrote: post #330
rcme wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My body is very good at incorporating the substances that it finds useful and ignoring (or killing) the ones that it doesn't What are you basing this off of? From my perspective, the body is decidedly not good at ignoring substances. There are thousands of poisonous or cancerous chemicals. Things like mercury or lead build up in the body to the point of causing severe harm. Anything that can be made small enough wi…

I just ate a dinner off of a plate that's been sitting on my shelf for a few days, using utensils that have been sitting in my drawer for a few days, accumulating whatever residual particles have been floating through the air settling on them. Like most people I lick my fingers after eating chips and don't sterilize my hands in advance, hands covered with whatever I've recently been touching (including the plastic ba…

That was a really long response, but I think you missed this:

> and the body was only “designed” to tolerate a narrow band of substances that are encountered in the natural world.

Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers

#337

Post by goodpoint »

defatigable wrote: post #331
goodpoint wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mental model is plain wrong. Humans are not "very good" at ignoring lead, asbestos, particulate, radiations, nox...

Most things my body consumes (even the ones it doesn't use) don't fall in to that category. And most of what you're describing our bodies are very good at ignoring. I'm bathed in radiation constantly and I'm fine (unless I stay out in the sun too long without sunscreen...). I wouldn't want to live in a house with asbestos or lead paint, but I wouldn't be too bothered visiting a friend who lived in one. And so on. It…

You can find tons of reliable information about pollution health hazards on the Internet - or continue to ignore reality.

Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers

#338

Post by parentheses »

DangerousPie wrote: post #141
Aurornis wrote: post #35

> Rather than introduce just the number of particles released by one container, the researchers instead exposed the cells to particle concentrations that infants and toddlers might accumulate over days or from multiple sources. > After two days, just 23% of kidney cells exposed to the highest concentrations had managed to survive So they used concentrations that they believe toddlers might accumulate over two days an…

I don't have access to the paper, but just reading the abstract it gives these numbers: > Exposure modeling results suggested that the highest estimated daily intake was 20.3 ng/kg·day for infants drinking microwaved water and 22.1 ng/kg·day for toddlers consuming microwaved dairy products from polypropylene containers. > Furthermore, an in vitro study conducted to assess the cell viability showed that the extracted…

I agree with your question:

> whether the exposure you'd receive from occasional microwaving would be enough to ever cause any meaningful health problems

Another question worth asking:

How much of the ~20 ng/kg/day makes its way to the kidney cells? Said another way, if one were to consume a liquid concoction with a certain concentration of nano/micro-plastics, what would the total negative effect be? How much would simply be excreted? That answer for babies vs adults may also vary.

Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers

#339

Post by rhubinak »

sfn42 wrote: post #270
balaji1 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing to suggest it's plastics in particular Sometimes wonder if these arguments are just devil’s advocating. I mean do you avoid heating food in plastic for you and yours? Or are you so scientific that you believe it’s fine until proven otherwise? Said another way, if you were to bet money, which way would you bet - that plastics are benign?

I'm not OP but yeah I assume it's fine until proven otherwise. Why wouldn't I? Otherwise where does it end? What other things should I assume are dangerous despite no evidence? Or are you saying I should latch on to whatever baseless hysteria is popular at the moment? I'm not a betting man. I think plastics have been around for a long time and as far as I know we haven't proven that they have a negative effect. If th…

They are man-made, mostly non-biodegradable and mostly non-recyclable. Which means they are thrash. I'd rather avoid ingesting or creating thrash.

Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers

#340

Post by sfn42 »

rhubinak wrote: post #339
sfn42 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not OP but yeah I assume it's fine until proven otherwise. Why wouldn't I? Otherwise where does it end? What other things should I assume are dangerous despite no evidence? Or are you saying I should latch on to whatever baseless hysteria is popular at the moment? I'm not a betting man. I think plastics have been around for a long time and as far as I know we haven't proven that they have a negative effect. If th…

They are man-made, mostly non-biodegradable and mostly non-recyclable. Which means they are thrash. I'd rather avoid ingesting or creating thrash.

They are microscopic trace amounts of trash that until recently we didn't even know about.

They are unavoidable, doesn't matter what you eat. Fish, vegetables, meat, whatever you can think of it has microplastics.

If you want to expend a bunch of energy trying to minimize it go ahead and good luck. Personally I don't see the point.

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