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Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals

nature.com

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

#41

Post by macspoofing »

lm28469 wrote: post #7
butchkass wrote: post #2

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…

>Most things we designed are just so fucking inefficient and borderline insane,

Are they though? We're quite good (and dare I say it: 'efficient') at feeding, housing and transporting huge populations. Almost all the inefficiencies you mentioned are preference and/or comfort based. Society is not separated from laws of physics and economics. Everything is balanced against the cost of those services - when/if costs go up, you do tend to see corresponding change, typically in efficiency increase (e.g. smaller more efficient cars as gas prices go up).

>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.

That's true ... kind of ... there is a cost for car ownership and use that is different in different regions. If you're in New York, you're probably not driving to work.

The human part of car ownership is freedom. It's not ultra efficient to own a car, but there is something about it that is liberating for many people of all economic statuses. Most likely, in the future, car ownership will go away for the vast majority of people, and it will be sad when it does.

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

#42

Post by drawkward »

pulvinar wrote: post #38
drawkward wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they have always been around suggest that there is no change to us as a result of their introduction. Plastics, however, have not always been around...

The question is are microplastics doing anything different in this case. The study shows that microplastics may block. It doesn't show that micro-natural-substances may not also block. I'd like to see more actual science, and less fear mongering.

I understand your claim; so we have lived forever with a baseline stroke risk (maybe zero) that is attributable to these microparticles. The addition of plastics, because they may block, will not certainly lower our baseline risk, and may (as this evidence suggests) increase it.

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

#43

Post by sigtstp »

userbinator wrote: post #24

Have not read the full article but I suspect the dosing and size are unrealistically high. Smaller particles resulted in fewer obstructions ...and that suggests the whole "nanoplastics" scare is another stupidity which is a moot point anyway because monomers and short-chain polymers are very reactive and unlikely to even persist for long.

That was my suspicion as well. This is outside my area of expertise, but from what I can tell the dosing isn't (multiple) orders of magnitude larger.

From the article, they mention about 4 times higher dosing than detected in humans when the MPs enter through medical supplies (including through surgery).

  - "about 12 μg of MPs [microplastics] per milliliter of blood have been detected in human blood. [prev studies mentioned above]"  (I haven't read those references, though, just going off a quick skim)
  - "We would like to bring mouse blood MPs to this level by injection."
  - "the diluted final concentration after entering the bloodstream should be blood of about 50 μg/mL" [sic]
A quick search for levels detected in humans led me to this paper [1] that gives 1.84 - 4.65 μg/mL, though with "a mean particle length of 127.99 ± 293.26 µm (7-3000 µm), and a mean particle width of 57.88 ± 88.89 µm (5-800 µm)." compared to uniform 5-μm-diameter microsphere used in the submitted article.

So the mouse dosing is (compared to humans):

  - 4 times higher than contamination through medical interventions (if i understand correctly)
  - 15 times higher than normal contamination  (only based on the one article)
So higher, for sure, but still rather close in cases with a lot of contamination. Not sure how the particle size factors into it

[1] Microplastics in human blood: Polymer types, concentrations and characterisation using μFTIR https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2024.108751

EDIT: formatting and rephrasing

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

#44

Post by drawkward »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #36
drawkward wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they have always been around suggest that there is no change to us as a result of their introduction. Plastics, however, have not always been around...

Mechanically, how could this make any difference whatsoever?

do you want to increase your risk of having a stroke (which is what the study suggests is happening with microplastics), or keep that risk level where it is?

put another way: would you go out and smoke cigarettes and expect no additional harm, because you are already exposed to environmental pollutants?

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

#45

Post by macspoofing »

sympil wrote: post #11
lm28469 wrote: 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.

>We are local min/max machines and need government to direct us to the global min/max but it doesn’t do that.

What is an example of that, because I governments do a reasonable of moving towards a global min/max. Where we haven't gone towards a global max/min is because it's actually hard. In many cases, the global min/max either isn't well defined, or if it is, you have to contend with existing infrastructure and huge costs to get there. For example, upgrading the electric grid to support massive amount of solar and wind power, is a multi-decade/multi-trillion dollar initiative (and this assumes solar and wind is even a 'global max/min' for carbon reduction .. and it isn't clear it is) ...

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

#46

Post by Zealotux »

dyauspitr wrote: post #37
Zealotux wrote: post #10

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…

The RO filtration membrane is also made of plastic. I haven’t found a way to avoid microplastics even though I have my own well and have an RO system.

You're correct, your RO system should reduce the amount of microplastics significantly though, to a point that makes your water much safer than most common options.

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

#47

Post by PaulKeeble »

Zealotux wrote: post #10
harimau777 wrote: post #6

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…

FFP3 and N95 masks will stop micro and nano plastics but the issue is its polypropylene, so the question becomes how much it sheds verses how much it blocks. Most of the PM2.5/10 tests against these masks shows they are better than outside air but I don't think the exact composition is fully understood. Based on how its sort blown molten fibres I suspect it sheds quite large bits of plastic if it does.

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

#48

Post by cowfriend »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #13
sympil wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 preven…

> 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.

You are forgetting about the influence of government subsidies. What would the housing market be like if home mortgage interest payments were not, and had never been deductible? Think back to the 70s, when mortgages had double-digit rates.

Would the US be swamped in HFCS, would we be producing ethanol, were it not for subsidies?

I agree with you on the importance of education. However, incentives matter, and government can incentivize both to the positive and negative.

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

#49

Post by PaulKeeble »

gwbas1c wrote: post #32
harimau777 wrote: post #6

Is there a viable way to actually avoid microplastics?

I started taking tea out of plastic teabags and dumping it into a tea sock.

You can buy loose tea and get metal tea stirrers that contain it which is about the best way to avoid the plastic. Still comes sealed in a plastic bag though, its very hard to avoid plastics at all.

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

#50

Post by 1970-01-01 »

drawkward wrote: post #44
1970-01-01 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mechanically, how could this make any difference whatsoever?

do you want to increase your risk of having a stroke (which is what the study suggests is happening with microplastics), or keep that risk level where it is? put another way: would you go out and smoke cigarettes and expect no additional harm, because you are already exposed to environmental pollutants?

My question was about mechanics of microplastics being different than other materials such as wood or other inorganics.
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