September 2025

Plastic able to circumvent Casparian strip in vegetables

The Casparian strip is a filter in the root of plants that should ideally only let water and nutrients pass through. Researches at the University of Plymouth found that nanoplastics were able to penetrate this filter and ascend to the leafy shoots. This helps explain why plastics have been found in fruits and vegetables in multiple studies.

Synthetic microplastics in hot and cold beverages in the UK

As usual, heated drinks contained more plastics than non-heated ones. They estimated the average total daily intake of microplastics from all fluids consumed to be 1.65 MPs/kg BW/day. For the average American adult, this is about 140 microplastic particles a day from fluids. Every tested drink had some microplastics.

August 2025

Plastic exposure linked with Alzheimer’s-like changes in mice model

Apoliproprotein E (APOE) is a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Mice with APOE exposed to excess plastic developed neurocognitive and regulatory pathway alterations as well as changes in brain biomarkers not seen in plastics-exposed mice without APOE. This suggests a potential synergistic effect between plastics and APOE in the development of Alzheimer’s.

The Lancet Countdown on health and plastics

A call to arms to kick-off a new series from The Lancet. Thorough and very well-written. Some snippets below:

Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognised danger to human and planetary health. Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding US$1·5 trillion annually. 

The world is in a plastics crisis. This crisis has worsened alongside the other planetary threats of our time and is contributing to climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss.

The 2023 analysis by the Minderoo–Monaco Commission on plastics and health found that plastics harm human health at every stage of the plastic lifecycle, that these health-relateddamages result in massive economic losses that are borne by society, and that plastics-associated harms fall disproportionately on low-income people and at-risk populations

July 2025

Microplastics in hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis fluids

Looked at 30 hemodialysis and peritoneal fluid bags; found approximately one relatively large (~0.1 - 1 mm) microplastic particle per liter bag. Would be interesting to study the concentration of smaller particles such as nanoplastics. Some of the colors of the plastic particles matched the color of the caps on the bottles, in alignment with the “Dirty Cap” theory seen in the study from Chaib et al. in France (glass bottles had plastic particle contamination from their caps that lead to more plastic particles than seen in plastic bottles!)

June 2025

Review concludes microplastics are in, and are damaging, our bones

Review of 62 studies found that present in bone and can stimulate osteoclasts, which contribute to osteoporosis-like changes. Plastic also found to reduce regeneration of bone.