It feels like every few weeks i see an article about microplastics being in the human body. As i understand plastics are inert so why do we expect them to be any more harmful than normal dust?
In: Biology
The first thing that usually comes to my mind is the pockets of inflammation they will cause in the body. This appears common with the intestines as that’s the first stop on the way in, but since microplastics have been found everywhere in the body you also need to assume they are setting off signals in other parts as well. The inflammation response can lead to scarring and tissue death, so even though the area of damage may be small the more microplastics we ingest the more pockets that will appear.
Even dust itself can cause damage depending on the size and amount but your body has mechanisms to block or prevent it from entering our system, and even if it does enter our system depending on the size and composition the body can break it down. Microplastics can’t be broken down by the bodies macrophages and just die attempting to. I don’t know if there are studies for how long plastics take to break down in the body but if it’s like other scenarios you are talking potentially hundreds of years, so not helpful while alive.
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