Bloody Plastic
By: Christen Brown
It is well known that blood has an extensive range, as it irrigates to the body’s organs and acts as a highway for oxygen, nutrients, and as discovered by a new study—plastic. On March 24, 2022 a study was released that uncovered the first measurement of plastic in human blood. This study sampled blood from twenty-two healthy volunteers, with the goal of discovering plastic particle absorption across the membranes in the human body.
To simplify the study, the scientist did not distinguish between “microplastic” and “nanoplastic” rather they utilized an inclusive terminology of “plastic particles.” The differences between microplastics and nanoplastics is the size of the particle, microplastics are classified as up to 5mm in size and nanoplastics compiles the submicron range of measurements for plastic particles. Previous studies have established the occurrence of plastic particles for gut contents, air, sediment, water and foodstuffs. One study published in 2018 in Frontiers in Chemistry identified 93% of a sample of 259 bottled waters contained microplastics.
The 2022 study outlined the difficulty of determining whether plastic particles in a small sample of blood, as plastic particle could be located in immune cells, adhered to proteins, lipid particles (cholesterol), or the vascular endothelium (barrier between circulation and boy tissue). Therefore this difficulty may affect the detection of plastic particle in the samples taken, but for ethical reasons, even with this difficulty, only a small sample of blood was taken. Although this study operates with limitations of identifying and quantifying types of plastics found within the human body, the purpose is to build a dataset for human exposure to have a starting point of reference for future studies. The study described these datasets as analogous to air pollution.
Results of the samples collected from the twenty-two volunteers demonstrated that 77% of donors carried a quantifiable mass of plastic particles in their blood. Seventeen of the twenty-two volunteers had plastics in their blood, with an average of 1.6 micrograms per milliliter, which is comparable to a teaspoon of plastic in 1,000 liters of water. The difference between the presence of plastic particles in each volunteers’ blood can be contributed to their environment. An individual's environment may contribute to the quantity of plastic exposure that may be introduced to the human body. One study published in Nature Geoscience identified microplastics in the air of the Verdant Pyrenees Mountains in France, another shows plastic in the rain over the Rocky Mountains and a study published in 2019 identified microplastic contaminations in U.S. groundwater.
While no conclusive health results could be given for the test, speculation based on other studies suggests that plastic particles may be transported to organs. The scientists from the study released in March also state that the likely root of plastic particles entering the human body is through either ingestion, inhalation, or through the placenta. The study proclaimed that dermal uptake was unlikely, citing to a study by Schneider et. al., clarifying that dermal uptake occurs only if the skin is damaged can plastic particles enter through the skin. In contrast, Dr. David Carpenter the Director of the SUNY Albany Institute for Health and the Environment argues that plastic particles could enter the body from cosmetic products by passing through cell membranes. Dr. David Carpenter going further to suggest the possibility of the particles entering the brain, or causing an inflammatory reaction in the body which is a precursor to cancer.
Microplastics are an ongoing wide-spread problem, with plastic pollution to the air, water and food. Microplastics have been found across the globe in the Arctic Circle and Mount Everest and in the stomachs of various animals, such as sharks and penguins. Concern over the negative effects of microplastics has been addressed by the legislature in the past. For example, in 2014 New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand urged federal regulators to ban microbeads after 1.1 million plastic particles per square kilometer in Lake Ontario was discovered in a 2012 study at SUNY Fredonia. Senator Gillibrand’s advocacy potentially persuaded President Barack Obama to pass a law banning microbeads in 2015. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, microbeads are still utilized in beauty products today and there is no sign of slowing the negative effects of microplastics on a variety of systems, now including our own blood.
While world’s attention was previously centered on the environmental impact of microplastics, the concern has now extended to human health. From this latest study, there is the potential for increased political and regulative movements to eliminate microplastics from the environment as the health of the environment is related, now even more conclusively, to human health. One example was an Assembly Bill introduced in California to improve microfiber filtration and prevent small plastic particles from entering the environment, but unfortunately this Bill has been stalled.