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Wherever scientists have looked for them, they have found tiny pieces of degraded plastic, including now in human poop. New research provides evidence of what scientists have suspected since microplastics were detected in seafood, salt and bottled water: people eat plastic particles and excrete at least some of them.
Although this is a small study to demonstrate that microplastics can be detected in feces and is actually found there, she is studying future work to look for broader patterns of human microplastic exposure and impacts. associated potentials on health.
Microplastics include fragments of less than five millimeters (diameter of a grain of rice) resulting from the decomposition of larger debris, such as bottles, in the environment. They are also made of synthetic fibers and plastic beads added to some cosmetics. They found themselves everywhere, from the bottom of the sea to the land, around the farmland – as well as in the early scientists and food and beverage experts examined – so that almost some people ingest them. But until now, there were no direct samples of humans showing that this was happening.
Stools seemed to be "the most promising place for humans for the first time," says co-author of the study, Bettina Liebmann, of the Austrian environmental agency. The detection of microplastics in the poo is delicate, however. She and Philipp Schwabl of the Vienna Medical University spent several weeks developing a method to break down the organic matter present in the feces without affecting the microplastics likely to be present, so that the plastic can be isolated from the samples.
The team collected samples from eight participants from Europe and Asia, who learned how to minimize contamination, for example by fibers floating continuously in the air – the scourge of many microplastic researchers. Scientists analyzed the stool for microplastics ranging from 50 micrometers (almost twice the diameter of a human skin cell) to five millimeters. "We were quite surprised to find microplastics in each sample," says Liebmann. They also detected nine of the 10 types of plastic polymers they sought most often, including polypropylene (used, for example, in capsules), polyethylene terephthalate (used in beverage bottles) and polystyrene (used in food containers). Although they were unable to identify the exact source of each particle, the results "confirm that we are surrounded by plastic in our daily lives," she says.
The work, presented on 23 October in Vienna at the United European Gastroenterology Week, an annual meeting of specialists in digestive health, serves as a starting point for further research. Liebmann and Schwabl hope to launch a larger study with more participants to look for any link between the amount, type and size of plastic particles, people's place of residence, their eating habits and other factors related to fashion. of life. They also hope to find smaller plastics, which are most likely to enter the intestinal wall and enter the circulatory system and other organs, as seen with other reduced size, made by man.
The new research suggests at least some microplastics (at the upper limit of the waist range) are excreted by the body, which Liebmann calls "a good sign". However, we still do not know how what will come out will compare to what could still happen. to be left in the body. "We just do not have a frame of reference," says Martin Wagner, an ecotoxicologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who did not participate in the new study.
Future work should also explore the possible adverse health effects of microplastics on the body, caused by physical injury to the intestines or other organs, or by the introduction of chemical additives into plastics. Scientists still do not know how microplastics might differ in this respect from other non-digestible particles to which humans are exposed. "We need to know if it's really toxic?" Said Wagner. "We are blind about it."
But with the new job, "we now know how to tackle the problem and we have the tools needed" to begin examining microplastics in humans beyond the assumptions made before, said Liebmann. "Now, we have proof that there is something that deserves to be watched."
