I wonder when and if microplastics will get it's Asbestos moment. Obviously they are not as carcinogenic, but it seems we don't have the full picture, and microplastics are present at an insanely higher degree than asbestos where.

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shubhamjain 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Probably never. I think it's been at least a decade since the fear over them became mainstream. Yeah, it's possible these things can take time to show up but considering the scale of their presence and how long we have been using them, we would have at least seen some definite relationship between them and some serious health concern. Look at the article itself, the health impact is conveniently buried in the last section, and it just repeats over and over how they can found everywhere in the body but nothing on what can possible happen.

So much of the scare revolves around the same framing, "microplastic" have been found in breast milk/blood whatever, but never seen one mentioning what it can possibly cause. Is it too hard to fathom that the answer is "nothing"?

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phyzome 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

TV ads 20 years from now: "If you or a family member have suffered from Spandex Kidney, you may be entitled to compensation..."

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bertil 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not as long as there are powerful car lobbies and the main source of microplastic will remain car tires.

Instead, you have articles like this trying to tell people to look away from that main source of problem, and blame, say, indoors or food preparation, and skip details like how the homes with the most microplastic in them are… close to the highway.

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sigmoid10 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Given the fact that they are so ubiquitous and yet no causal relation between microplastics and any health issue whatsoever has been identified in any rigorous study until today [1], I'd say a lot of this reporting is fear mongering by the eco/organic industry, aimed at gullible people who know very little about science. Not as insane and unphysical as electro smog, but definitely nowhere near asbestos. The linked article even goes into detail how warped the perceptions are among the general population and how doctors should educate people better, because there are real risks from other things out there. If you're really concerned about health effects of common pollutants, there are much bigger risks with actual proven causal effects in everyday compounds.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12620896/

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strogonoff 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> BPA is a known endocrine disruptor. Although initially considered to be a weak environmental estrogen, more recent studies have demonstrated that BPA may be similar in potency to estradiol in stimulating some cellular responses.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21605673/

> In 2017 the European Chemicals Agency concluded that BPA should be listed as a substance of very high concern due to its properties as an endocrine disruptor.[30] In 2023, the European Food Safety Authority re-evaluated the safety of BFA and significantly reduced tolerable daily intake (TDI) to 0.2 nanograms (0.2 billionths of a gram), 20,000 times lower than the previous TDI from 2015.

> In 2012, the United States' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of BPA in baby bottles intended for children under 12 months.[31] The Natural Resources Defense Council called the move inadequate, saying the FDA needed to ban BPA from all food packaging.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_Bisphenol_A

> This followed another paper in early 2024, where a group of Italian researchers identified microplastics in plaques found in the carotid arteries – a pair of major vessels which deliver blood to the brain – of people with early-stage cardiovascular disease. This linked their presence to worsening disease progression. Over the following three years, individuals carrying these microplastics in their plaques had a 4.5-fold greater risk of stroke, heart attack or sudden death.

> Then in February 2025, another group of scientists identified microplastics in the brains of human cadavers. Most notably, those who had been diagnosed with dementia prior to their death had up to 10 times as much plastic in their brains compared to those without the condition. "We were shocked," says Matthew Campen, a University of New Mexico toxicology professor who led this study.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20250723-how-do-the-mic...

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3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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sigmoid10 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is exactly the kind of fear mongering reporting I was talking about and explains the general public's warped perception described in the research review I linked above. If you look at the brains of dead people with dementia, you'll also find more aluminum, which has caused people to panic about antiperspirants. But there is zero actual causal evidence that Al exposure causes dementia, if you do the science right. The same goes btw. for amyloid plaques, which has actually hindered real Alzheimer's research. So not even scientists are safe from the correlation!=causality problem. You can make up all kinds of potential hazards by comparing similar molecules and inventing bioavailability pathways. But at the end of the day this is just speculation and you need hard data to prove these assumptions.

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OutOfHere 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The aluminum relations are easily explained with the observation that healthy kidneys excrete aluminum well, whereas unhealthy kidneys don't and so it accumulates. There might also be similar variations in aluminum deposition in the brain depending on the brain's innate ability to wash out chemicals. In contrast, the excretory mechanisms of plastics seems less trustworthy.

The user is deliberately and blatantly ignoring a wealth of scientific literature that exists. Also, plastics come bundled with numerous other harmful classes of chemicals, e.g. phthalates, bisphenols, etc. The risk is not merely in the brain, but also in blood vessels, including those adjacent to the heart.

Beware the plastics industry shills on this page. They will have you ignore the science, become infertile, and then have you die, all for their temporary gain.

	▲	sigmoid10 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It doesn't change the fact that there is no actual causal evidence. Perhaps the demented brains simply suck at flushing out microplastics as well. If you ever find people with more microplastics exposure have more dementia (like they did for asbestos and lung cancer), then you're onto something. But no rigorous study has found this yet. And if they do, you will hear of it immediately for sure, given how much reporting there is for microplastics=bad for you.

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scotty79 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wonder when celulose and silica will get their microplastics moment and it turns out we were always full of micro garbage.

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dijit 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think microplastics has been directly linked to the decrease of male hormones and an sperm quality.

source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12989-022-00453-2

So, it's having an effect of some kind.

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sigmoid10 3 hours ago | parent [-]

This was in mice that were given up to 1000 mg/L of microplastics in their drinking water. If you have this level of contamination, you probably should stop whatever it is you are doing anyways, disregarding your testicles. But even then, there is no evidence for this in humans. Research shows that most microplastics simply passes through your digestive system unhindered.

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dijit 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, typically we test adverse effects in mice before doing trials on larger animals.

That we haven't observed such extreme behaviour in a scientific way in humans doesn't mean it isn't there, it's just that we haven't yet scientifically observed anything. That there is some evidence in favour of it having adverse effects somewhat defeats the idea that it's "provably non-harmful", which is your current stance.

It might be interesting; instead of downplaying the harm, to see if we can observe any patterns that fit with these findings over the course of human history with the introduction of microplastics...

and if we were to do that, we'd find some interesting correlation, even if it's not provably causation yet.

https://www.healio.com/news/endocrinology/20120325/generatio...

We also know that plastics are a source of hormone disrupting chemicals; https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-environmental-toxins-...

Bury your head I guess? Just make sure it's not a polyester pillowcase.

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sigmoid10 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Sorry, I still subscribe to science and not speculation. But I guess I am increasingly alone with that idea on HN. And to be clear if someone points out a rigorous causal link, I'd be onboard immediately. But this purely speculative fear mongering based on random scientific observations targeted at non-scientists is similar to what you see in the homeopathy and energeticism circles. Except noone here would believe that 5G makes you sick, because techies know at least this kind of science a little bit.

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dijit 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The science disagrees with your hypothesis that "provably, nothing is the matter".

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sigmoid10 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Then please link to it. I'm still waiting for a causal health issue meta analysis that disagrees with me. Shouldn't be hard, if "the science" as you call it has come to a consensus. But I have only seen wild speculation so far like the one linked here.

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dijit 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure. Here's a few:

- Microplastics found in 76% of human semen samples, with PET-exposed men showing reduced sperm motility: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12299061/

- Multi-site study across China (113 men), PTFE microplastics linked to sperm dysfunction (published in eBioMedicine/Lancet): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-39...

- Microplastics found in every human testicle sampled, at 3x the concentration of dogs, with PVC correlating to lower sperm count in canines: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36948312/

- In-vitro exposure of human semen to polystyrene MPs showed time-dependent decline in motility and increased DNA fragmentation: https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6304/13/7/605

The mouse study I linked earlier isn't the whole picture; it's one piece. The "no human evidence" line was maybe defensible in 2022. It isn't anymore.

Also, re: "1000 mg/L is unrealistic".. the study used two doses, 100 μg/L and 1000 μg/L. Raw surface water in Amsterdam has been measured at ~50 μg/L. The lower experimental dose is well within an order of magnitude of real-world contamination. That's how dose-response science works.

Comparing this to homeopathy is… a choice.

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sigmoid10 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You'll excuse me if I only explain the first one, since the others seem redundant (not to say suspiciously redundant if you look at the authors). And none of this is a meta review like I asked, but I'll let it slide this time.

First:

>no significant association was found between MP exposure and sperm concentration or total sperm count

Second: N=34

Third (if second didn't give it away): The one effect they did find sits at p=0.056. That means one in 18 random studies will find that effect just because of probability statistics. And as you have nicely pointed out, there are maaaany studies like this out there. You just don't find all the null results if you go into research with your mindset. But that is exactly what differentiates a scientist looking for truth from a hobbyist trying to argue on the internet.

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dijit 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You asked for a meta-analysis. Here's one: 39 studies, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03043...

It found microplastics caused a decrease of 5.99 million/mL in sperm concentration, 14.62% in sperm motility, 23.56% in sperm viability, and a 10.65% increase in sperm abnormality rate. (I copied and pasted these values directly from the source).

You said you'd be "onboard immediately" if someone showed you a rigorous causal link. This is a meta-analysis with an adverse outcome pathway mapping the causal chain from molecular initiating event (ROS) through to tissue-level damage. That's about as rigorous as it gets before human clinical trials, which (for obvious ethical reasons) nobody is going to run.

As for the p=0.056 critique: you picked the weakest single data point from one of four links and declared victory (scientific!). The in-vitro study I linked exposed actual human semen to microplastics under controlled conditions and observed time-dependent decline in motility and increased DNA fragmentation. That's not a simple correlation, it's a direct causal experiment on human tissue. You didn't address it.

The goalposts have moved from "show me evidence" to "show me a meta-review" to "well not THAT meta-review." At some point you have to engage with what the research actually says rather than with what you'd like it to say.

	▲	sigmoid10 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Doesn't this one directly contradict the other one you linked? What is it now? How is my sperm in danger!? Please Mr. Googlescienceman! Oh god! I'm so confused! I can't take it anymore. Please just tell me what brand of air filter and plastic free clothes I need to buy!! Perhaps I should ask the all mighty google AI overview... Edit: Oh - lol XD. It literally just told me the science has found no causal link for microplastics harm. Hm. I guess you are just better at researching random studies than us mortals with stupid science degrees and hyped summary machines.