[HN Gopher] Correlation between fecal microplastics and inflamma...
___________________________________________________________________
Correlation between fecal microplastics and inflammatory bowel
disease (2021)
Author : lxm
Score : 84 points
Date : 2024-06-17 18:07 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pubs.acs.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (pubs.acs.org)
| jtbayly wrote:
| I think this is the first clear correlation I've seen between
| microplastics and any health issues. I've seen lots of guesses
| and assumptions about how they must be bad for us, but I've not
| seen anything like this. And of course, this is just a
| correlation so far. Causation hasn't been proved.
|
| Have I missed others?
| vngzs wrote:
| Experiments with human cells and mice have shown oxidative
| stress, neurotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, carcinogencity,
| and altered metabolism.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10151227/
|
| If you ask me, plastic is the new lead.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| All my food interacts with plastic. I can go to Rainbow
| Grocery, and they are just doing me the favor of disposing of
| the plastic packaging somewhere else in the supply chain.
|
| Much plastic dust in my environment is from car tires.
|
| Both my neighbors solve problems with their roofs with
| disintegrating, $50 plastic tarps from Home Depot, filling my
| back yard with plastic. Multi million dollar homes in San
| Francisco!
|
| What am I really supposed to do? Speaking of lead, it's not
| like the city has forced anyone to replace the exterior lead
| paint or lead pipes.
|
| You are right, but if it's lead, it's bad news. The problem
| isn't that pollution is unknown, the problem is that the
| middle-aged members of my community, maybe every community,
| fucking suck as soon as something costs them a fucking dime.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _the middle-aged members of my community_
|
| There's no need for prejudice, be it skin colour or age.
| Cheap and corner cutting exists across the entire spectrum
| of humanity.
| spigottoday wrote:
| Cheap and cutting corners might be better described as
| externalizing costs. As we know increasing shareholer
| value trumps all. That being said our civilization would
| have to roll back to something like the 1800s level of
| technology. I'm not advocating for this, medicine and
| transportation can not exist without plastic, but our
| clothing furniture and rugs and other items don't have to
| be. And plastic recycling doesn't have to be a joke. But
| we can't expect shareholders to interalize those costs
| and not get as rich as fast as possible, can we? After
| all it will be someone else who will be affected by the
| wanton distraction of the environment.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| Have you talked to your neighbors and offered to cover the
| cost of replacing their roofs, so they no longer need to
| use those tarps that are causing you problems? It shouldn't
| be that much of a financial burden on you if it'd only cost
| a "dime" or two to fix the problem properly.
| hansvm wrote:
| To be fair, if you poke a cell with sugars, amino acids,
| vitamin C, and all sorts of other essential nutrients you'll
| also see signs of oxidative stress, neurotoxicity,
| reproductive toxicity, carcinogenicity, and altered
| metabolism. In some ways it's the counterpart of "bullets
| cure cancer in a petri dish."
|
| Plastics are still probably bad (with a prior that most
| synthetic chemicals we're exposed to are known to be toxic
| and not "proven" to be so and actually banned for 20-100
| years), but a cellular study showing that plastics damage
| those cells isn't very convincing on its own.
|
| Your linked study is a little broader, but it mostly
| summarizes studies with grandiose ideas or those summarizing
| those sorts of "poke a cell and find it doesn't like being
| poked" experiments I initially derided.
| g15jv2dp wrote:
| Do you think the people who performed the studies didn't
| think of that?
| RandomCitizen12 wrote:
| Do you think that everyone who ever released a "bullets
| cure cancer in a petri dish" study didn't think of that?
|
| Whether or not they did, it's still a necessary part of
| the discussion.
| Zenzero wrote:
| It's worse than lead. Our planet has irreversiblely been
| polluted at so many levels of the food chain that it will be
| a wonder how future humans will figure out how to clean it
| all up. I'm convinced that at this point we have signed every
| lifeform up for an evolutionary pressure, and future
| generations will likely be selected for their resistance to
| whatever collection of illnesses are ultimately linked to
| microplastics.
| kelipso wrote:
| Two months ago: An analysis of artery-clogging plaques in 257
| patients found that the presence of these microplastics was
| associated with a roughly quadrupled risk of heart attack,
| stroke or death, researchers report March 7 in the New England
| Journal of Medicine.
|
| https://www.sciencenews.org/article/microplastics-nanoplasti...
| post_below wrote:
| Some examples off the top of my head:
|
| - Many plastics contain known endocrine disrupters like BPA
| that have been shown to get into people's bodies and correlate
| with negative health impacts such as certain cancers, sex organ
| abnormalities and infertility
|
| - Microplastics can damage cardiovascular tissue and correlate
| with heart attack, stroke and premature death.
|
| - Microplastics correlate with infertility in men.
|
| - Microplastics absorb heavy metals in the environment and can
| then transport them into the food chain. Heavy metals of course
| having many established negative health impacts.
|
| These are just some examples, a quick search should get you
| many more (along with the sources on the above).
| coldtea wrote:
| I saw different guys die from a piano falling on their head a
| couple of times, and there are some studies guessing or hinting
| at the 500kg piano affecting their health, but I'm not sure the
| piano falling on them caused their death. Could just be a
| correlation, which as we all know is not causation, maybe it
| was what they ate that die or something. Piano falling sounds
| benign after all, so unless we have 100% settled science on the
| matter, let's not jump into worrying!
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Fortunately, microplastics seem to be more like dihydrogen
| monoxide. Great many studies show how DHMO is toxic and
| dangerous at both cellular and macro levels. This is a
| problem, because DHMO is even more ubiquitous in the
| environment than microplastics. There's kilograms of it in
| you and me right now!
| coldtea wrote:
| Yeah, microplastics, an industrial byproduct, are totally
| like dihydrogen monoxide, something essential for life,
| which we and all other species, evolved for billions of
| years to need for basic functioning.
|
| I mean, this kind of thoughtless rooting for any tech and
| tech byproductto the level of this comparison, similar to
| the chavinistic "my country, right or wrong" , is like
| those who were consuming radioactive stuff in the early
| 20th century to prove "it's completely safe".
|
| and "any tech is always good" is about as much scientific
| as flat-earth.
| BaculumMeumEst wrote:
| I'm expecting that we will be hearing a lot of correlations about
| microplastics in the coming years. I am not necessarily expecting
| that they will hold up under scrutiny. I don't think present day
| academia is incentivized to be accurate, representative of the
| truth, or helpful in any way to the public, and the fact that
| this study is paywalled is reinforcing that belief.
| zug_zug wrote:
| Yeah, there will be some incorrect papers.
|
| But there are errors in the other direction too. How many
| deleterious effects will never be proven scientifically because
| it's incredibly exhausting to get thousands of participants and
| quantify their subjective wellbeing in a controlled way?
| squigz wrote:
| You specify _present-day_ academia. Do you feel as though there
| was a point in the past where this wasn 't true? If so, when,
| and why do you think it's changed?
| Covzire wrote:
| My guess is pre-Moon Landings, pre-Peer Review and pre-DoEd.
| squigz wrote:
| What does the moon landing have to do with it?
| Covzire wrote:
| Nothing, it's a reference to the period not the event
| itself. Something went wrong in Academia sometime between
| the 60's and 80s, to the point where papers today
| routinely get both peer-approved and simultaneously can't
| be reproduced. Something is very wrong with our ethics.
| squigz wrote:
| Is there data on the reproducibility of papers both pre-
| and post- the alleged academic shift?
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Why would anyone with a viewpoint of the last 75 years expect
| anything other than microplastics are harmful?
|
| Lead? Great material, tastes good in wine! Stops knocks in
| gasoline! Kills our children.
|
| Asbestos? Wonderful insulator! Great cheap material for keeping
| buildings warm during the winter. Causes cancer.
|
| Margarine? Lower calories than butter, almost tastes just like
| it! Causes heart disease.
|
| Teflon? Awesome for non-stick pans! Non-stick all the things!
| Causes cancer.
|
| Benadryl? Great anti-allergy med, dries you up and helps you
| sleep during hay-fever season! Causes dementia with extended
| use.
|
| BPA? Great cheap material for making water bottles and food
| containers... Causes cancer.
|
| Peppermint flavored Tums... The binding agent for the
| peppermint was a possible carcinogen. They pulled mint-flavored
| Tums off the market for a while until they could figure out a
| new way to make it.
|
| We already see microplastics causing mutation and other issues
| in sea life. Why would we expect this to go any differently
| than what we've been learning about all these other modern
| conveniences?
| zug_zug wrote:
| Wouldn't that be ironic, if after years of doubting and mocking
| the proliferation of food sensitivities it turned out it was
| because there was literal plastic in us.
| ziggy_star wrote:
| The correlation does not mean the microplastics are the thing
| _causing_ IBD. It probably means they are exasperating it for
| various reasons. Goddamit.
|
| Incidentally so do things like poppy seeds.
|
| I got hit with this at 10 years old. Suspiciously to me after
| returning from a year in the US, before that there was no sign of
| any problems. IBD presents all over the world and I'm guessing
| predates the microplastics phenomena.
|
| The other interesting correlation I know of is a lack of exposure
| to dirty things as a toddler. I've sort of given up any hope that
| it will be figured out in my lifetime despite occasional wiggles
| of hope from articles like this.
|
| Generally in the community people theorize all kinds of things
| about diet and some are lucky to reach and stay in remission by
| eating a narrow diet that agrees with them - but what exactly
| that is varies wildly across individuals. I've never found a
| common thread.
| tejohnso wrote:
| > The correlation does not mean the microplastics are the thing
| causing IBS. It probably means they are exasperating it for
| various reasons.
|
| As mentioned in the abstract, it could also be that IBD
| exacerbates the retention of MPs.
| teekert wrote:
| I'm no expert but is fecal transplant not an option? I think
| there is a link with the microbiome, right?
| ziggy_star wrote:
| That is a thing. I met a mother-daughter duo, they'd travel
| with a little bag and disappear to do that and it wasn't a
| big deal and they claimed results.
|
| Really no idea, there are quite of few of these potential
| treatments, people actively try and hack it. It depends on
| the specific situation what is appropriate to try.
|
| I'm in full remission for a very long time already against
| all odds. It completely ruined my childhood and I'm thankful
| for everyday and live with it as a sword of Damocles like so
| many others.
| jessriedel wrote:
| There are many on-going studies but so far none have found a
| protocol that clearly and reliably improves IBD. Many people
| find fecal transplants compelling because they seem safe and
| have a plausible (albeit vague) mechanism of action, a
| gastroenterologist emphasized to me: at least one (elderly)
| person has died from a fecal transplant and another got
| dangerously sick; they are not without risk.
| alan-hn wrote:
| IBS is not IBD
|
| IBS = irritable bowel syndrome
|
| IBD = inflammatory bowel disease
|
| IBD includes conditions such as ulcerative colitis and Cohn's
| disease
|
| IBS and IBD are very different in mechanism and symptoms
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| Lots of research into FODMAPs
| tuyiown wrote:
| > Generally in the community people theorize all kinds of
| things about diet and some are lucky to reach and stay in
| remission by eating a narrow diet that agrees with them - but
| what exactly that is varies wildly across individuals. I've
| never found a common thread.
|
| It also really looks like a methodology problem on the medical
| science side to me, statistics easily nullify important data
| when variables are difficult to control.
| evilturnip wrote:
| 100% agree. I've found no theory as to what correlates with my
| particular issues: hives and elevated heart rate when consuming
| processed food/gluten/I don't know what over a long period and
| also difficulty sleeping. If I go pure low-carb, I'm fine, even
| if I consume large amounts of sugar. However, stress can also
| induce it even if I am eating properly. Additionally,
| evaporation of sweat also causes it in certain cases.
|
| Nobody seems to have any idea what the issue is, but I've
| learned to manage it by controlling diet and stress basically.
| I'm still not 100% why/how it happens.
|
| I've learned that these sorts of issues may be something
| science will never figure out for me since they focus on
| populations rather than the individual. I expect in 10 years
| some studies at some point will start isolating _some_ of these
| triggers as they become more prevalent. I 've talked with a few
| people who've had similar issues.
| jessriedel wrote:
| > IBD presents all over the world and I'm guessing predates the
| microplastics phenomena.
|
| IBD occurs in many parts of the world, but it is a disease of
| modernity. It is highly correlated with GDP. In particular,
| Chron's and UC are basically absent among hunter gatherers and
| in very poor countries. (And researchers have good reasons to
| think this is not a measurement error.)
| ramblenode wrote:
| > The correlation does not mean the microplastics are the thing
| causing IBD. It probably means they are exasperating it for
| various reasons.
|
| It doesn't even necessarily mean that microplastics are
| contributing to the harm. It could be that existing disease
| impairs the body's ability to eliminate microplastics.
|
| Regardless, following the precautionary principle, we should
| treat them as a foreign toxin until the evidence suggests
| otherwise.
| ce4 wrote:
| Needs a (2021) tag.
| dang wrote:
| Added. Thanks!
| ExMachina73 wrote:
| It's tires. Millions of cars and their tire wear for literally
| the last hundred years. How can it not be in our bodies and
| causing issues at this point.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| It has to be PVC pipes. Once you cut one with a mitre saw and
| see all the plastic dust in the pipe that gets washed into the
| nearest water source
|
| Or the replacement of wool with polyester and nylon over the
| last 100 years
|
| Tires are a good thing to look into but a lot of things have
| change drastically in the last 100 years...
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Synthetic fibers has to be a big one.
| willy_k wrote:
| That's a factor for sure, especially with the finding (that was
| posted last week on HN) that there are tire compounds in leafy
| greens. But it's almost certainly also due to the use of
| various plastics in everything; even if you're drinking from a
| glass bottle it most likely passed through plastic at some
| point.
|
| I also entertain the idea that the "feminization" that appears
| to have occurred since the 50's is due to (micro)plastics and
| PFAS being literal ligands of the estrogen receptor, and their
| well documented endocrine disrupting effects. I recall some
| study found that 100% of males tested had microplastics in
| their testes.
| nostromo wrote:
| It's clothes, linens, and bedding too.
|
| People use synthetic fabric sheets, pillow cases, not to
| mention mattresses. Most pillows are filled with plastic. We
| cover our bodies in plastic, then wash our clothes and
| microplastics enter the wastewater system.
| newsclues wrote:
| From the replies maybe it's everything? Food, water, medicine,
| homes, clothing, everything is plastic!
| willy_k wrote:
| That's essentially the problem. Everything is plastic because
| plastic is cheap and versatile, but surprise, it's also bad
| for you! Maybe in a century after a bunch of bickering on
| whether or not it's really bad, if it's worth solving, and
| lobbying by every industry against any potential hit to
| revenue, it'll finally get solved, and then we get to find
| out all the problems with the solution, rinse and repeat.
|
| I wonder how hemp would work out as a replacement, it seems
| pretty promising - stable, biodegradable, likely inert, and
| versatile (it can be used for containers, textiles, paper,
| and a lot more). For degradation, (GMed) fungi or bacteria
| seem like a potential avenue, surely nothing could go wrong
| with that.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Rubber tires aren't new, they've been around for 120 years. If
| there has been an uptick in IBD in the past few decades that
| didn't exist for the first 80 years of the 20th century, you'd
| have to suspect a number of different things before tires.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _Microplastics in food and drink may be fueling a dramatic rise
| in bowel diseases_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29742132 - Dec 2021 (13
| comments)
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| As an engineer that relies on plastics in my product design, I've
| been wondering more and more if we're creating the next global
| environmental disaster after climate change with our use of
| plastics.
|
| I recently saw a video of someone restoring a 100 year old
| vegetable shredder, and with some rust removal and fresh paint
| the thing was good as new. Of course it was all metal. Then I
| looked at Amazon for vegetable shredders and they're almost all
| plastic.
|
| We could make our products out of more metal or all metal. Even
| so-called exotic metals like titanium are relatively abundant,
| and new manufacturing processes are lowering the cost of those
| parts.
|
| But we use so many plastic films that get used once and can't be
| recycled, as have so many plastic products that fall apart and
| get sent to landfills because recycling is kind of a lie anyway.
| If you go to a big box store like Target, right at the entrance
| you see shelves of cheap plastic junk meant as some sort of
| novelty to be used once or twice and then forgotten and thrown
| out. Companies like Shien sell the cheapes polyester clothing
| possible which falls apart in to pieces which quickly become
| microplastics. EVs are supposed to save us from climate change
| but in doing so they're delivering us faster wearing tires
| releasing more microparticles in to our environment.
|
| And I suspect that if we look at production, it's accelerating.
|
| So just like when atmospheric carbon passed 300ppm and we said
| "what happens at 400ppm and higher", what happens when ambient
| microplastics double, triple, or quadruple current levels?
|
| What would it look like to cut plastic production today? How
| could we even prepare to do that?
| supportengineer wrote:
| I spend a lot of time reading /r/collapse, but I am pretty sure
| there won't be a "next global environmental disaster after
| climate change".
| luckman212 wrote:
| That's good news! I don't think I could stomach another
| global disaster after the climate fails. /s
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Well maybe but obviously that subreddit is going to be biased
| towards stories of collapse, rather than telling the whole
| story. Those stories are terrifying and I'm also of the
| opinion that things are worse than we realize, but I also
| think that despite the many human and environmental
| catastrophes that climate change will continue to cause,
| society will persist.
| nostromo wrote:
| Plastics will get more expensive as we use less and less oil.
|
| Plastics are basically a waste byproduct from the energy
| industry. As we use less oil, there will be less plastic trying
| to find a use and flooding the supply of plastics.
|
| When prices rise, a lot of single use plastics, like water
| bottles, will be uneconomical.
| siffin wrote:
| Completely wrong, "With gasoline's days numbered, oil
| companies are sending huge amounts of their production to
| chemical plants for plastic."
|
| We're gonna get MORE plastic when we use less oil. Always
| follow the profits.
|
| https://www.barrons.com/articles/shell-chevron-oil-
| chemicals...
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _We could make our products out of more metal or all metal._
|
| What's interesting is that a large part of this was the move to
| "ergonomic" kitchen tools, which the kitchenware brand OXO has
| been a big part of.
|
| Because you're right -- kitchen tools used to be made out of
| metal and wood. Metal could be bent back into place and
| resharpened. Pieces of wood could easily be replaced.
|
| Then OXO decided that small metal handles like the one on the
| all-metal classic vegetable peeler you or I might have grown up
| with [1] weren't usable by people with hand grip/coordination
| issues, decided to use a bicycle handlebar grip as a model, and
| invented their now-famous OXO vegetable peeler [2] with a big
| rubber grip. And then slowly everything started to follow that
| aesthetic -- most kitchen tools are made out of plastic,
| rubber, silicone, and nylon, with "bulbous" handles. The rise
| of nonstick cookware is partly responsible for the trend as
| well, necessitating plastic/nylon/silicone turners, spoons,
| etc.
|
| I'm not sure what I think about it. On the one hand, my kitchen
| almost feels like it's made for children, with all these big
| grippy things. I worked in a kitchen in Spain once where all
| the tools were probably 50 or 100 years old, and thought -- oh
| this is a kitchen for _adults!_
|
| On the other hand, modern kitchen tools seem to be much safer,
| and usable by a larger proportion of the population --
| especially the elderly. So I can't really see that as a bad
| thing.
|
| [1] amazon.com/Linden-Sweden-Original-Vegetable-
| Peeler/dp/B00176JEY4
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Swivel-
| Peeler/dp/B0000...
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| It's definitely an interesting notion. I would also say that
| there must have been some correlation between wider
| availability of plastics and brands like OXO using them for
| production. They might say it's a nicer tool to hold, and
| maybe it is, but plastics are also much, much cheaper to
| manufacture and need to be replaced more often, so they're
| great for corporate profits.
| mxmilkiib wrote:
| Nanoplastics are worse, imho
| scotty79 wrote:
| paint is also plastic
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Yeah good point! We're covering everything in plastic. The
| Sherwin Williams logo was more honest than we ever wanted it
| to be.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwin-
| Williams#/media/File...
| pojzon wrote:
| We did nt use plastic as often as we use now in the 50s.
|
| After that the oil lobby shifted the world into that horrendous
| path.
|
| All of current issues we have now could be explained pretty
| simply by human greed.
|
| Ps. This year we double the amount of plastic due to the shift
| into electric cars. That oil has to be used for something.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Nearly all metals are toxic to some extent if ingested. Lead
| and mercury are famously toxic. But chromium (a component of
| stainless steel) is rather toxic too, and even copper (used
| widely in piping and wiring) isn't all that good for you.
|
| Nearly all metals will dissolve slightly into food or water
| they come into contact with.
|
| It really isn't clear that metals pose less health risks than
| plastics.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Well, lead and mercury aren't typical engineering metals.
| Iron seems fine and actually good for you as long as the dose
| isn't too high. Good point on stainless - would be
| interesting to see what is worse for us in practice based on
| dosage - chromium from stainless (probably minute quantities)
| or microplastic. Then there's aluminum, which seems to be
| safe but I think science is continuing to develop on that.
| Then there's titanium which is still too expensive for normal
| consumer goods but I think there's room for that to go down
| with investment. For example Apple now uses titanium in the
| iPhone.
|
| I think engineering metals have much less influence on the
| environment than plastics do, but I'm very in favor of more
| study. My point is that I think this is something we really
| need to be thinking about. Right now engineering as a field
| doesn't spend much time thinking about environmental harms
| from plastic in normal goods, and we might want to spend more
| time on that.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Aluminium is fairly poisonous too: https://en.m.wikipedia.o
| rg/wiki/Camelford_water_pollution_in...
|
| And this study suggests aluminium in the brain might be
| cause (or effect) of autism, Alzheimer's, and various other
| neurological conditions:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-64734-6
|
| (Sulphates, acetates and oxides form really easily from
| contact with food and the environment)
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Well the first link is a massive chemical spill which is
| usually bad, but doesn't say much about the effects of
| aluminum in everyday objects.
|
| The latter I'm aware of as we have Alzheimer's in my
| family and I work in the machine shop with aluminum quite
| often. I do wear eye and respiratory protection but I
| also recently researched it and it seems the link between
| Alzheimer's and aluminum is still quite unclear and not
| firmly established.
|
| But as I've said in a few replies now I'm all for study
| of what the systemic harms of each are. If plastics cause
| harm and metals cause harm then the real question is what
| is the nature and magnitude of those harms. I think this
| requires more careful study. My point is that it may be
| time to look at plastic pollution the way we look at CO2
| pollution.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-06-17 23:01 UTC)