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Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

nature.com

11–20 of 74 posts

Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

#11
post #7

People in a few decades will think we were crazy for packaging 100% of our food in plastic, the same way we think putting asbestos everywhere was crazy back then. The amount of strokes and aneurysms that are gonna happen in 20~50 years is gonna be truly fantastic.

Try to wipe your mind and walk in a supermarket as if you've never been in one, nothing makes sense whatsoever. Same for roads in the cities, endless streams of 2000kg+ hunk of steel, plastic and glass, 95% of them transport about 80kg of human, 95% of the time they're just parked taking space for no reason. Most things we designed are just so fucking inefficient and borderline insane, humans are very adaptable and i…

It is the era of extreme inefficiency and waste. We are local min/max machines and need government to direct us to the global min/max but it doesn’t do that.

Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

#12

Is there a viable way to actually avoid microplastics?

Joining the Amish ? But they’re finding microplastics in the air at 5000m of altitude, as well as in the blood of fetuses, so even them are probably contaminated.

I think the only things one can do at this point is avoiding the worse sources of microplastics, e.g. heating food in plastic containers

Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

#13
post #11
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to wipe your mind and walk in a supermarket as if you've never been in one, nothing makes sense whatsoever. Same for roads in the cities, endless streams of 2000kg+ hunk of steel, plastic and glass, 95% of them transport about 80kg of human, 95% of the time they're just parked taking space for no reason. Most things we designed are just so fucking inefficient and borderline insane, humans are very adaptable and i…

It is the era of extreme inefficiency and waste. We are local min/max machines and need government to direct us to the global min/max but it doesn’t do that.

That's because the at best, the government can be a penalty condition in the objective function, and recently it's effect has been almost completely eclipsed by the near term gains. I believe what we'd need is education. The more educated the masses are, the more likely it is that they vote for governments that have the long term interests in mind, and the more likely it is that the government itself will then prevent swings to short term thinking.

There are many feedback loops in the system, and we are so far down the short term maximization route that it'll be mighty difficult to swing it back.

Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

#14

People in a few decades will think we were crazy for packaging 100% of our food in plastic, the same way we think putting asbestos everywhere was crazy back then. The amount of strokes and aneurysms that are gonna happen in 20~50 years is gonna be truly fantastic.

Devils advocate here: food has been packaged in plastics for decades and plastic containers have been around longer than that. If plastics were as damaging as you claim, wouldn’t we have already seen this in the epidemiology?

Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

#15

Is there a viable way to actually avoid microplastics?

It's pretty much impossible to completely avoid microplastics. They're literally raining down on us at this stage. But it's parts per millions to consider.

I remember seeing a video about how all gortex and basically all waterproof great releases microplastics into the environment and then the rain basically carries it everywhere. If I find it ill post it.

Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

#16

Is there a viable way to actually avoid microplastics?

I've been trying to avoid them and it's though. I use glass water bottles, ideally would prefer something like reverse osmosis but not so practical. Remove as much plastic as possible in your daily life: clothes, food containers, bed sheets, etc. Don't eat food that came to contact with plastics and certainly don't eat up food in plastic containers. Vacuum regularly, use a HEPA filtering system to reduce harmful part…

> ideally would prefer something like reverse osmosis but not so practical

Just curious why that is? I was going to buy one for my new house and they seem pretty practical, at least for drinking water at home.

Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

#17
post #15

Is there a viable way to actually avoid microplastics?

It's pretty much impossible to completely avoid microplastics. They're literally raining down on us at this stage. But it's parts per millions to consider. I remember seeing a video about how all gortex and basically all waterproof great releases microplastics into the environment and then the rain basically carries it everywhere. If I find it ill post it.

This https://youtu.be/-ht7nOaIkpI?si=avIcOa76alLdbAqo ?

Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been trying to avoid them and it's though. I use glass water bottles, ideally would prefer something like reverse osmosis but not so practical. Remove as much plastic as possible in your daily life: clothes, food containers, bed sheets, etc. Don't eat food that came to contact with plastics and certainly don't eat up food in plastic containers. Vacuum regularly, use a HEPA filtering system to reduce harmful part…

> ideally would prefer something like reverse osmosis but not so practical Just curious why that is? I was going to buy one for my new house and they seem pretty practical, at least for drinking water at home.

I live in a small place that I rent so I don't have so much space for the system, but if you have the space for it I would say it's worth it! I would also love to have RO for my shower but I haven't found a solution for that.

Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

#19
post #8

Is there a viable way to actually avoid microplastics?

You can reduce the exposure but I doubt you can eliminate it. Live far away from roads, live outside of cities, avoid all plastic containers for water/food, avoid synthetic clothes/bed sheets/towels/&c.

So I guess it depends on your definition of "viable"

Re: Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

#20

People in a few decades will think we were crazy for packaging 100% of our food in plastic, the same way we think putting asbestos everywhere was crazy back then. The amount of strokes and aneurysms that are gonna happen in 20~50 years is gonna be truly fantastic.

We didn't. The experts did.

Not even the experts, the MBAs did. Then the JDs did the lobbying to make sure government agencies were powerless to stop them.

In reality, there was not a single "expert" in the room. In fact, if you were "expert" in any field other than business or law, you were very likely removed as a candidate to even be one of the people chosen to be in the room long ago.

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