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Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

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Re: Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

#101
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with every point here, and they all make a lot of sense... yet most alcoholic beverages are shipped to the consumer in glass bottles, including even the cheapest beers. I have seen some drinks shipped in plastic, so it is possible to do, I wonder if glass packaging is a 'premium' thing. Though, if they can do it for cheap beer, then I'm sure they can do it for non-alcoholic drinks on scale.

a 500 ml Al can weights 13 grams. life knows if we can skim down its weight if we don't have self openers, the price if we develop a better recycling system etc. if plastics have impact on human health, how many $ we can save for using re-usable glass and metal?

Aluminum cans are lined in plastic.

Re: Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

#102
post #76

I am fairly convinced that this comment section is among the best demonstrations for "isolated demands for rigor" I have personally ever seen, especially paired with any comment section about an AI-related article When we are trying to predict the implications of unproven technologies on complex worldwide economies, there is talk of "obvious inevitability" When we express concerns that chemicals humanity recently sta…

It's a soft, warm blanket of denial, because the actual implications of it are too scary.

As humans, we seem to really like warm blankets. See: high school football and CTE

Re: Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, we've been exposed to microplastics for decades, but what does the evidence say? Afaict, not much. The revelation that you are likely to have microplastics suffused throughout your body seems far more meaningful than "not much". The effects of this are unknown, but it seems reasonable to be concerned about potential harm until it's effects are studied in vivo and it's statistically not more harmful than the u…

The fact that we can't pin down a strong effect on human health outcomes after decades of exposure should be a relief. We do have in vivo studies, but afaict they don't seem to pan out in human health outcomes.

> The fact that we can't pin down a strong effect on human health outcomes after decades of exposure should be a relief.

I can't say this means much to me when exposure to plastic has been accelerating that entire time.

Still, I do sincerely appreciate skepticism as a useful part of any dialogue about hypothesized health impacts.

Personally, I don't see an issue with avoiding consumer-grade plastic except when necessary.

Re: Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

#104
post #7

Does someone have good papers on the negative effects of microplastics (ideally on humans)? A while back I tried to look for those, and it was nontrivial to find papers that would conclusively show that they are harmful, and the mechanisms of this harmfulness. There's a ton of press about where they are (everywhere) but (as a layman) you could argue it's because they're not very reactive, and this lack of reactivity…

[deleted]

Re: Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, we've been exposed to microplastics for decades, but what does the evidence say? Afaict, not much. The revelation that you are likely to have microplastics suffused throughout your body seems far more meaningful than "not much". The effects of this are unknown, but it seems reasonable to be concerned about potential harm until it's effects are studied in vivo and it's statistically not more harmful than the u…

The fact that we can't pin down a strong effect on human health outcomes after decades of exposure should be a relief. We do have in vivo studies, but afaict they don't seem to pan out in human health outcomes.

It's not important how "relieved" you feel, it is important that we exercise scientific rigor when we notice something like this. I don't want scientists to look at the lack of evidence of harm, and just breathe a sigh of relief and carry on with other studies. I want scientists to see the overwhelming microplastic problem, and exhaustively study the risks, and harms, and the solutions.

I see no benefit in hand waving away a potentially serious public health problem just because you aren't seeing any anecdotal evidence of harm.

Re: Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, we've been exposed to microplastics for decades, but what does the evidence say? Afaict, not much. The revelation that you are likely to have microplastics suffused throughout your body seems far more meaningful than "not much". The effects of this are unknown, but it seems reasonable to be concerned about potential harm until it's effects are studied in vivo and it's statistically not more harmful than the u…

The fact that we can't pin down a strong effect on human health outcomes after decades of exposure should be a relief. We do have in vivo studies, but afaict they don't seem to pan out in human health outcomes.

In the last century the landscape of human health problems has pretty drastically shifted (more cancers, more obesity, more asthma, perhaps more mental illness, lower rates of maiming, less malaria and consumption deaths, and frankly this is all just deaths, which is not the only kind of health outcome we care about) so the fact that we can't suss out all the cause and effect from every factor and every outcome is neither surprising nor an argument against it being alarming any time a novel foreign substance can penetrate cell membranes and readily bioaccumulates

Like we study mechanisms for a reason. "Little things get into all your cells" isn't a specific causal argument for specific health outcomes, but it's reasonable to assume it might do something undesirable based on what we know about how cells work and other cases like it. Also, the intervention space is pretty large and some scaling back on plastic usage from the current levels would not be some crazy obvious harm either

Also, "we haven't found effects yet" is especially troublesome in a case where the contaminant in question is a cash cow for an industry that has continuously spent more money than I can even meaningfully reason about suppressing science and muddying discourse about products they sell. Sowing doubt has been an explicit strategy of the petroleum industry for greenhouse effects and it took a long time for us to even definitively know that, so now that we do, why should I assume the same companies aren't taking the same approach for this problem? Again, it feels like isolated demands for rigor

Re: Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

#107
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We should go back to glass bottles, whenever possible. There are very good, very practical reasons we moved from glass (and metal and other materials) containers to plastic. Unless those factors are sufficiently addressed, plastic is here to stay. For those who haven't been keeping track or are just too damn young to know history, those factors include: * Weight. Glass and metal, and also other materials like cerami…

What's the toxicity of microglass particulates?

Silica is one of the most common substances on earth — the crust is more than half silica by mass. Pretty much all life can, by necessity, tolerate a good deal of silica exposure. You don't really want to breathe a lot of fine silica dust (or, frankly, any size of glass bits), but actively grinding it into dust that gets airborne is just about the only way it'll cause problems, other than cutting yourself.

Re: Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One doesn't reduce the use of plastics without using something else as a replacement. If we replace all plastic cups with glass cups, might we get micro-glass inside ourselves instead? Glass, mostly silicon dioxide, might sound harmless, but glass can chip off in microscopic sharp fragments (think fiberglass dust - which some suggest might be as bad as asbestos). Glass also slightly dissolves in water (this is how gl…

This is completely inaccurate and disingenuous. Glass suffers from no such thing as "microglass", unlike plastic. Plastic actively sheds micro/nanoplastics into bottled water, with hundreds of thousands of particles (and probably more depending on its handling) floating in the water, along with any chemicals used to make plastic moldable, fire-retardant, etc. Glass bottles have no additives that leach out in anything…

> disingenuous

How about we leave the silly accusations of malice at whatever low rent other website they were learned at. You don't know motivations.

Re: Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely inaccurate and disingenuous. Glass suffers from no such thing as "microglass", unlike plastic. Plastic actively sheds micro/nanoplastics into bottled water, with hundreds of thousands of particles (and probably more depending on its handling) floating in the water, along with any chemicals used to make plastic moldable, fire-retardant, etc. Glass bottles have no additives that leach out in anything…

> disingenuous How about we leave the silly accusations of malice at whatever low rent other website they were learned at. You don't know motivations.

The term 'disingenuous' isn't about malice, it's about misleading comparisons. Equating the well-documented issue of micro/nanoplastics with hypothetical (and inaccurate) risks from glass muddies the water on a serious environmental problem. If you want to dispute the facts I presented about glass versus plastic safety, let's focus on that instead of tone policing.

Re: Microplastics in the olfactory bulb of the human brain

#110
post #76

I am fairly convinced that this comment section is among the best demonstrations for "isolated demands for rigor" I have personally ever seen, especially paired with any comment section about an AI-related article When we are trying to predict the implications of unproven technologies on complex worldwide economies, there is talk of "obvious inevitability" When we express concerns that chemicals humanity recently sta…

My impression is people are generally alarmed but without any science of what the harms are it’s hard to understand what we need to do about the situation. The science is still very immature, and there are lot of other bad things (PFAs for example) that are likewise ubiquitous and permeate everything and everywhere that we have a pretty clear notion of their dangers. Even then it’s hard to assess how severe the harms…

> Even then it’s hard to assess how severe the harms are for microplastics yet. Part of the reason is they’re clearly not overtly dangerous.

This is a contradiction.

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