New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour • Hacker News Board

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#241

Post by flir » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #75

There are two macro population health trends that suggest we are somehow poisoning ourselves at a large scale. Most people do not relate the two, but I personally wouldn't be surprised if they have related causes. The first is the Flynn effect, which was rising IQ levels decade over decade, which halted and then reserved for most Western nations around 1990s/2000s and is now declining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…

If the Flynn Effect is caused by more complex environments, it's possible we've just maxed out the improvements to be had from turning up the gain on that. Maybe this is just as smart as we get because of hard biological limits.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#242

Post by gizmo » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

saberience wrote: post #225

bhouston wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity is caused in part by environmental toxins, probably to different extents in different people: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/19/environm... https://www.webmd.com/obesity/what-to-know-obesogens These so called "obesogens" just increase the propensity towards obesity and depending on exposure and your sensitivity to then, you can overcome them or not via exercise and dieting and other means.

Obesity is caused by eating too much. If you don’t eat then you won’t gain weight, there is no subverting the laws of thermodynamics. It sounds callous but if you go to Africa or visit a prisoner of war camp you won’t find many fat people and so blaming chemicals in America for so many fat people doesn’t make much sense to me.

True in the technical sense, but it doesn’t address the mystery that in the 40s, 50s, 60s people in rich countries had access to plenty of food, ate lots of calories, and yet obesity was very rare.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#243

Post by avgcorrection » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

njovin wrote: post #22

I'm still shocked that there hasn't been more of a regulatory push to eliminate single-use plastics. In the US the closest we've gotten is banning plastic straws and charging for plastic carry bags. Everything I've read about plastic recycling points to it being ineffective and requiring massive amounts of fossil fuel to move the waste around the globe, often with much of it just getting burned or dumped into the env…

> I'm still shocked that there hasn't been more of a regulatory push to eliminate single-use plastics. In the US the closest we've gotten is banning plastic straws and charging for plastic carry bags.

I think it's because those two things can be used to scold consumers and thus inculcate the belief that the final link in the production-consumption chain bears all the blame.

I mean I have seen signs encouraging people to use reusable bags at the checkout line. But is it a problem that literally everything in the store (except mushrooms I guess) is wrapped in plastic? Apparently it is not.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#244

Post by scythe » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #206

bhouston wrote: post #75

There are two macro population health trends that suggest we are somehow poisoning ourselves at a large scale. Most people do not relate the two, but I personally wouldn't be surprised if they have related causes. The first is the Flynn effect, which was rising IQ levels decade over decade, which halted and then reserved for most Western nations around 1990s/2000s and is now declining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…

Is there no existing population that has been minimally affected by these 2 factors ? A controlled study is impossible to do, but the correlations and trend lines should show up when comparing across different population wide exposures to PFAs and microplastics. That's another reason I think it is important to keep granular data of localized IQ, fertility, and trends in reproductive choice. People are worried about w…

Sure, there are plenty of such populations. The first one that comes to mind is the Kogi, who live in a sky island 4000 meters above northern Colombia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kogi_people

But none of those populations can actually be used for testing, because you would need to collect relevant data on them starting 50 years ago, and we don't have any time machines.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#245

Post by networkchad » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

saberience wrote: post #225

bhouston wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity is caused in part by environmental toxins, probably to different extents in different people: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/19/environm... https://www.webmd.com/obesity/what-to-know-obesogens These so called "obesogens" just increase the propensity towards obesity and depending on exposure and your sensitivity to then, you can overcome them or not via exercise and dieting and other means.

Obesity is caused by eating too much. If you don’t eat then you won’t gain weight, there is no subverting the laws of thermodynamics. It sounds callous but if you go to Africa or visit a prisoner of war camp you won’t find many fat people and so blaming chemicals in America for so many fat people doesn’t make much sense to me.

[dead]

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#246

Post by fellowmartian » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

Mistletoe wrote: post #35

discordianfish wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will make you end up missing crucial trace elements if not replaced somehow

This is untrue, do the math on tap water compared to food. It's such a small contribution. >Using an average calcium concentration in public water supplies of 26 mg/liter and a maximum of 145 mg/liter (Durfor and Becker, 1964) and assuming that the average adult drinks 2 liters of this water daily, then the drinking water could contribute an average of 52 mg/day and a maximum of 290 mg/day. On an average basis this w…

Your body is not an abstraction. There will be parts of your body that will come in contact with acidic distilled water before it diffuses. But even in aggregate there were some studies showing increase in muscle cramps and heart disease in people drinking distilled water.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#247

Post by ethbr1 » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

saberience wrote: post #225

bhouston wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity is caused in part by environmental toxins, probably to different extents in different people: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/19/environm... https://www.webmd.com/obesity/what-to-know-obesogens These so called "obesogens" just increase the propensity towards obesity and depending on exposure and your sensitivity to then, you can overcome them or not via exercise and dieting and other means.

Obesity is caused by eating too much. If you don’t eat then you won’t gain weight, there is no subverting the laws of thermodynamics. It sounds callous but if you go to Africa or visit a prisoner of war camp you won’t find many fat people and so blaming chemicals in America for so many fat people doesn’t make much sense to me.

Obesity is caused by eating too much of the wrong thing.

Which happens to be the cheap thing in industrialized mass produced Western food chains. Cheap in terms of dollars and personal time.

So obesity is really an economic problem.

We should come down like a ton of bricks on fast food and require they offer healthier options at low prices, subsidized by taxes on their unhealthier options.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#248

Post by scythe » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #75

There are two macro population health trends that suggest we are somehow poisoning ourselves at a large scale. Most people do not relate the two, but I personally wouldn't be surprised if they have related causes. The first is the Flynn effect, which was rising IQ levels decade over decade, which halted and then reserved for most Western nations around 1990s/2000s and is now declining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…

>I wonder what else could be contributing?

The Wikipedia article on the Flynn effect mentions air pollution. Though this is a little surprising because in some parts of the West, air pollution has decreased since the introduction of acid rain controls in the 1980s, while the decline shows up generally after the 90s.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#249

Post by bjowen » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

smallerfish wrote: post #149

myshpa wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is this really claiming that plastic starts to fall apart from the get-go Yes. Microplastics are everywhere. Everywhere on the planet we look, we find microplastics. Just ... everywhere. Beekeepers are using plastic worker brood foundations, for example. Honey is often stored in plastic buckets and bottles, somewhere in the production process/transport. And it's not just the honey. https://www.theguardian.com/envir…

> Microplastics are everywhere. Everywhere on the planet we look, we find microplastics. Just ... everywhere. I appreciate the links, but that's not what I asked. I know microplastics are everywhere. Do you have studies showing that plastic begins to distintegrate immediately? What's the working lifetime for a plastic container before it begins to distintegrate and leach microplastics into what's stored in it?

The microplastics in a product don’t have to originate in a product’s final packaging. Things like airborne particles on the production line, filaments from filters and cleaning equipment, manufacturing swarf, and cleaning processes that are oriented to killing small things with heat / UV / chemistry rather than filtering tbem out is probably more of the answer than leaching and degradation.

Re: New study finds microplastics infiltrate all systems of body, alter behaviour

#250

Post by SirMaster » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 1:46 PM UTC

saberience wrote: post #225

bhouston wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity is caused in part by environmental toxins, probably to different extents in different people: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/19/environm... https://www.webmd.com/obesity/what-to-know-obesogens These so called "obesogens" just increase the propensity towards obesity and depending on exposure and your sensitivity to then, you can overcome them or not via exercise and dieting and other means.

Obesity is caused by eating too much. If you don’t eat then you won’t gain weight, there is no subverting the laws of thermodynamics. It sounds callous but if you go to Africa or visit a prisoner of war camp you won’t find many fat people and so blaming chemicals in America for so many fat people doesn’t make much sense to me.

But not eating slows down your metabolism, and then you will eventually find yourself at a point where you are tired all the time because you are not consuming enough calories to have a high enough metabolism and energy level, and yet you are still slowly gaining weight because you are too tired to do anything to burn it off.