from Hacker News

Human brain samples contain an entire spoon's worth of nanoplastics, study says

by lucaslazarus on 2/4/25, 6:08 PM with 14 comments

  • by Ancalagon on 2/4/25, 6:39 PM

    Dementia or no - that is actually a truly astounding amount of plastic build-up.

    Like I almost don't believe there's a spoon's worth of plastic in any semi-functioning human brain, that'd be like a pretty big cancer tumor right? Even if completely inert?

  • by IndrekR on 2/4/25, 8:40 PM

    It would be interesting to see chemical analysis of those particles. Most common in the environment seem to be tyre particles (by a large margin), polyesters (textiles), polystyrene and polyethylene (both from packaging and single use utensils/plates/cups). Wonder if it is a different distribution in human body.

  • by abe94 on 2/4/25, 6:21 PM

    I wish there were better more accessible tests available, that you could take as a consumer to show how much plastic you have accumalated in different parts of your body.

    I saw bryan johnson take a test like that recently but couldn't find a vendor close to me that I could use. Gathering more data would be a great step in understanding the problem better

  • by lucaslazarus on 2/4/25, 6:16 PM

    Caveat that this is yet to be peer reviewed, but I wonder if this is the leaded gasoline of our times

    > Editor’s Note: This story was originally written in August 2024 based on a preprint, which is an early copy of a paper that had not yet been peer-reviewed. It has been updated to reflect the final peer-reviewed and published paper in Nature.

  • by hassleblad23 on 2/4/25, 7:03 PM

    Do we know the effects of these microplastics accumulated in our bodies?

  • by oniony on 2/4/25, 6:56 PM

    Is that the plastic to make the spoon, or a spoonful of plastic?

  • by dp-hackernews on 2/4/25, 7:33 PM

    Forgive my ignorance, but how the hell does a compound like plastic get biologically absorbed by the body without being broken down to a point where it is actually no longer a plastic compound?

    I mean, we can eat triglycerides, but the process of digestion breaks them down in order for them to be absorbed, they are then reconstituted as needed on the other side.

    What am I missing with regards "plastic" in the context of the article?

  • by ppollaki on 2/4/25, 9:29 PM

    >devastating environmental news posted

    >"but where's the peer-reviewed proof this is bad?"

    >[+247]

    >"classic HN contrarianism"

    >[-89] [flagged] [dead]

    >rinse and repeat