Microplastics Everywhere

“Our brains today are 99.5% brain and the rest is plastic”

While we sip our drinks through a bamboo straw to join the fight against plastic products,

plastic has been swimming freestyle inside our bodies for years: flowing through our arteries, entering the brain with no trouble at all, and practically waiting for us around the corner in almost every product around us, animal, vegetable or mineral.

Mass production of plastic began worldwide after World War II, and it keeps intensifying to this very day.

Globally, according to a UNEP study, more than 400 million tons of plastic are produced every year, and by 2050 the amount of plastic could reach 1.1 billion tons in a single year. Between 1950 and 2017, 9.2 billion tons of plastic were produced, most of it left as waste in our natural environment, and so it has a decisive impact on the entire global ecosystem.

When plastic breaks down, it turns into microplastic particles. A microplastic is a tiny plastic particle, defined as plastic less than five millimeters in diameter, or specifically between one micrometer and 5 millimeters in diameter. There are two types: primary and secondary. Primary microplastics are tiny plastic particles manufactured for commercial uses, such as cosmetics. Secondary microplastics are particles that result from the breakdown of larger plastic items, such as water bottles. This breakdown is caused by exposure to environmental factors, mainly solar radiation and the ocean.

Harvard Medical School's magazine published an article titled “Microplastics everywhere.” It noted that sources of microplastic exposure include trash, dust, fabrics, cosmetics, cleaning products, rain, seafood, agricultural produce, table salt and more. Without anyone noticing, microplastics are consumed by fish and animals and through them by humans as well, and this causes many problems, such as antibiotic resistance, genetic mutations, reproductive disruption and more.

Accordingly, studies from the past decade point to a very clear fact: over time, our bodies are exposed to and contain more and more microplastics. The long-term health effects of microplastics in the human body are still being studied, but earlier studies have already linked microplastics to inflammation, oxidative stress (when the body has an imbalance between the free radicals present in it and its ability to neutralize them), hormonal disruption and even possible carcinogenic effects.

At first, microplastics were found in organs like the colon and the lungs, but in recent years evidence of microplastics has also been found in the bloodstream, in 77% of the subjects, to be precise. Microplastics have been detected in saliva, the liver, the kidneys, breast milk and placental tissue. But what is most surprising, and at the same time alarming, is the presence of microplastics in human semen.

In a 2024 study, microplastics were found in 100% of the subjects' testicles. Microplastics are found in the reproductive fluids of both women and men, which widens the concern about the effects on our fertility as a whole.

Given the understanding that microplastics can penetrate tissues and reach the bloodstream, the question arises: how do microplastics manage to enter the bloodstream, and from there the internal organs of our body?

Recent scientific studies point to routine medical procedures as part of the answer.

There are clear findings regarding the presence of microplastic particles in intravenous (IV) infusion systems, which include syringes, solution bags and IV tubing.

Scientists have discovered that plastic particles from common medical IV bags can leach into the fluids inside them and enter the patient's blood during the infusion.

Tests on popular saline bags found up to 7,500 microscopic pieces of polypropylene plastic in each IV bag, especially after exposure to heat or UV light, with no barrier preventing these particles from flowing directly into the bloodstream. Because this bypasses natural filters like the gut or the liver, it may be one of the most direct and alarming ways microplastics enter the body. Since the bloodstream offers direct access to vital organs, these particles can travel to the heart, the brain or the lungs.

In another study, published in 2023 by researchers from the University of Nebraska and the University of California, they showed that intravenous fluids given through plastic bags and tubing contain tiny plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters that flow directly into the patient's blood. In their analysis, the researchers tested 20 IV bag and tubing systems commonly used in hospitals and found that they released tens to hundreds of thousands of microplastic particles during a single infusion.

Our massive exposure to plastic doesn't spare the brain either: “Our brains today are 99.5% brain and the rest is plastic”, says Dr. Matthew Campen, a professor at the University of New Mexico and lead author of a recent study that reveals how the plastic content of the brain has risen by 50% since 2016! An average brain sampled in 2024 contained a whopping 7 grams of microplastics. None of the sampled brains were free of microplastics, but higher concentrations were seen in people with dementia.

Experts are calling for better manufacturing standards and for examining alternative materials in medical equipment.

Some suggest using non-plastic or low-shedding materials and developing filtration systems to prevent microplastic contamination during infusion.

These discoveries add to the growing body of evidence that plastic pollution is not only an environmental problem but also a real obstacle to the health of people trying to recover in medical settings such as hospitals.

To days of knowing

With love

Ran ❤️

A study on the subject

microplastic presence research.pdf (PDF, 1.5 MB)

More on healing from within and from nature