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What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

nautil.us

161–170 of 341 posts

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#161
post #111

If we all are against usage of plastic, what stops us from eliminating it completely around us.

As someone else said, we aren't. I am, but "we" aren't. But I'm also complacent as many if not most people are, even though I think I "do my part", I don't really do much. I can see probably a hundred bits of plastic in this very study room.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

certain groups (nurses, doctors or certain workers) have to wear a masks all of the time for years. It would have definitely been noticed if it would cause such effects...the control group exists, just compare it to the rest. It would have been obvious.

But those groups are particular ones that are also exposed to other environments that affect health so any discrepancy will be hard to attribute. Also, doctors did not wear masks to the extend we did during Corona. They'd only wear them during some surgery, not the whole day including even outside.

On the contrary, there's been plenty of doctors and lab technicians wearing masks full time and for decades!

Not to mention semiconductor workers.

And industrial worker dealing with hazardous materials.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#163
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also switched to "Himalaya" (Pakistani) salt, hoping that is low in microplastics.

yep. the exact same thing. i get to buy them in huge 5 Kg rocks because its just a few hundred km away but that is the reason.

Honestly that's kinda cool. And I refuse to imagine anything but a melon sized hunk 'o salt on the dinner table, with a small hammer and chisel for those who want to salt their meal.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#164

The actual study is here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942... The study presents three scenarios assuming different assumptions about the mass of plastic particles. In the worst case scenario, where I think the assumptions are bad, they estimate 5g of plastic per week. In the other two scenarios which used more complex but more realistic modelling they estimate 0.15 and 0.3g of plastic cons…

Why is there so much in salt?

Likely because it is derived from seawater which is swimming in tiny plastic particles.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s worrying about this is that we’re about 50 years into an unexplained epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease that nobody has a clear explanation for, and is also affecting lab animals fed controlled diets. It would be fascinating if this was all correlated with a common environmental contaminant, and the increasing use of various plastics could line up well.

It's pretty clear the epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease is largely caused by sugar https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM

It’s not at all clear that the current epidemic is caused by sugar.

Lustig is a great speaker, and I’ll admit that when I first watched that I was quite convinced.

His position, however, is still not representative of a consensus within the field, and for good reason. While sugar consumption is likely detrimental to one’s overall health. Simply cutting out sugar is not necessarily going to lead to better weight management outcomes.

While sugar consumption has increased over time, so have added fats and oils [0]. Which are much more calorically dense. It’s unlikely that any one food source is leading to the increases in obesity that we are seeing.

[0] https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/82220/eib-166....

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#166
post #111

If we all are against usage of plastic, what stops us from eliminating it completely around us.

I'm not against all usages of it. I think where one needs a supremely robust material (like in the military) it's very useful.

However I think it should be banned from any and all contact with foodstuffs.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#167

>bisphenol A mimics the hormone estrogen and can lead to damage in sperm development.19 Further research has shown that microplastics, and not just those with bisphenol A, can cause damage to the testes and lead to the production of deformed sperm cells that have a harder time reaching eggs. I'd more interested in hearing what microdosing xenestrogens on a large scale does to our collective psychology. I think this i…

Read Dr. Shanna Swan's new book, it's all about this. Very scary shit

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#168
post #53
post #2

The numerous spiders you swallow in your sleep will take care of that.

Then you have to swallow a bird to catch the spider and I’ve heard it doesn’t end well.

You're supposed to let the spiders swallow flies, and the bird swallow spiders, then you swallow the bird. Not swallow them all in a row!

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#170

The actual study is here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942... The study presents three scenarios assuming different assumptions about the mass of plastic particles. In the worst case scenario, where I think the assumptions are bad, they estimate 5g of plastic per week. In the other two scenarios which used more complex but more realistic modelling they estimate 0.15 and 0.3g of plastic cons…

What’s worrying about this is that we’re about 50 years into an unexplained epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease that nobody has a clear explanation for, and is also affecting lab animals fed controlled diets. It would be fascinating if this was all correlated with a common environmental contaminant, and the increasing use of various plastics could line up well.

Highly unlikely. The obesity epidemic is very well explained by diet and lifestyle choices, and regional variations in average body mass correlate with these explanatory variable pretty well.
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