Plastics below 100 microns can make its way through the gastrointestinal tract to be carried around in our blood, can be lodged in liver and kidney that cleans up the blood. Can also make its way into the BBB into our brain.
Very low apoB / LDL is of course important to reduce plaque formation which probably will be exacerbated by microplastics (i.e larger plaques can have more plastic stuck on them), as well as to reduce stroke risk.
Why is plaque so sticky as to contain so many MPs… What about wood micro particles or dirt/silica
It was mentioned somewhere else but phthalates might be bad, what are they? From soft plastic leeching into food?
Likely. And: "Early efforts to limit exposure to them focused on packaging, but it’s now clear that phthalates in particular can also get in from the plastic in the tubing, conveyor belts, and gloves used during food processing, and can even enter directly into meat and produce via contaminated water and soil " Source: consumerreports.org.
It seems almost impossible to avoid. At least where I live nearly all food has plastic packaging. You could try to grow part of your food yourself, but we have many reports by now of (much) too high PFAS-concentrations in garden grown foods, and ‘backyard’ chicken eggs. That’s besides the fact PFAS-concentrations have also been shown to be too high in store bought foods. And that’s besides the presence of (other) micro-/nano-plastics in foods, of which we currently don’t have a clue.
Not all plastics are made equal. I doubt you’d get any plastic from above bottle. Hard plastic is pretty hard, and I doubt it will dissolve in one’s nostrils. Nothing to worry if you ask me. I would be wary of water boltless leaching plastic (into the water), but I would not worry so much about milk jugs as an example. But a real hazard seems to come from billions upon billions of tire particles in the air we breathe. That is I’d say more of an immediate problem.
“Exhaust emissions from UK vehicles have fallen by 90% since 1996, according to the government dat”
And that’s UK vehicles, which are diesel powered and WAY more polluting than American ones, I definitely notice the difference …
IDK if I believe that most particulate pollution is from roads in the UK. In the US, definitely. But my PM2.5 is often WAY higher near traffic in Europe (including London), and barely higher (if it’s even higher…) near traffic in the states
Now we have def (diesel exhaust fluid) which makes the air coming out of the diesel engine cleaner than the air going in. It’s on all new equipment and it’s not a mature technology. Lots of problems. But the air should be getting cleaner.
I am always surprised at the amount of air pollution at home. When I come home, I turn on my HEPA air filter purifier. Yesterday it registered ‘38’ and the red ‘polluted air’ light came on. Once it goes below ‘10’ the light changes to blue. I try to keep the number at ‘1’. (When my helper cooks, the number can get up to ‘300’!) 
When the red light is on, I cough frequently at home. When the counter hits ‘1’ I can breathe easily without any coughing. A HEPA air-filtered purifier is worth its weight in gold.
I really wish someone had conducted an 80/20 analysis here.
There is a lot of alarmist messaging, but it would be helpful to understand which specific types of plastic are least likely to be excreted through sweat or feces and most likely to shed nano/microplastics that can get lodged in blood vessels or even organs. Then, for these worst offenders, it’d be great to quantify the contribution of different factors and determine which ones are modifiable.
It would be good to know, for example, that not heating food in plastic containers and drinking tap water could reduce 90% of the exposure, so there would be no need to worry about polyester clothing or the plastic packaging of foods - or vice versa.
also the parts NOT facing the face are the ones designed to be “sticky/charged” (stickier MPs might be more problematic)
Exactly!
There is so much noise in this area right now, its hard to identify the high impact things you can do to lower risk, without getting neurotic about eating and handling things. We have to be careful about not over-reacting to every small sample sized, negative study (or positive study).
For people who might trend towards anxiety all this noise could be both misleading and stress-inducing, so I encourage everyone to take this type of news as just early information that needs to stand the burden of time and evidence before taking any significant course corrections in your daily routine. The only thing I’ve really done to adjust my behavior is throw out old plastic cutting boards and move to bamboo. And generally use paper bags more. I’ve avoided plastic in the microwave for many years now.
I’m being extra strict about plastic in the microwave now (glass only), and using mostly wooden utensils for cooking. Otherwise, waiting to see more research. I’m interested to see when some companies will start bragging “no microplastics!” in their convenience food containers and other products.
It might be time to ditch plastic containers and zip lock bags to store your food. New research finds that those everyday food packaging materials are leaching a cocktail of potentially harmful chemicals right into your food. In fact, researchers in Norway say they uncovered nearly 10,000 different chemicals in a single food packaging product!
The study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, by researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology tested 36 different plastic food packaging products from Germany, Norway, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The findings were troubling as nearly all of the items contained substances that interfered with the body’s hormones and metabolism.
OMG, everything I buy at the store is in plastic!
Researchers did find some interesting patterns. Plastics made from PVC, PUR, and LDPE generally leached more toxic chemicals compared to PET and HDPE plastics. Colored and printed plastics tended to be worse than plain ones. And fatty, oily, or acidic foods are more prone to sucking out chemicals from packaging compared to dry foods.
This headline made me click and read, but this is insanely inefficient and barely works.