In the 1967 movie, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman as the lead character is given the earnest advice that the future is plastics. So it turned out. We’ve all heard that microscopic shards of plastic are everywhere, from water supplies to open oceans to polar bears to our own bodies. Here’s a shocker. In a recent issue of Nature Medicine, Alexander Nihart and 20 colleagues report finding an average of 0.65% plastic by mass in brains in 91 recently deceased people. That’s the equivalent of more than four polyethylene bottle caps!
Our brains concentrate plastic microbits more than any other organ. The data are not that reliable, alas. Small brain samples could have been contaminated during processing, as noted by Jun-Li Xu and colleagues in the journal Nature on 13 March 2025. The labware used in analyzing samples is largely plastic. The researchers call for more studies, and more rigorous studies. We need to know how the microplastics can get into our bodies and deep into our cells. We need to know just what effects these plastics have on our physiology – our metabolism, our immune function, our mental function.
Researchers need to hone their analytical methods and to share data with rigorous controls. Let’s get going fast. Is that a Coke logo on my retina?
This has been an outreach activity of the Las Cruces Academy, viewable at GreatSchools.org.
Source: Nature 13 Mar. 25, pp. 300 ff.
Image : Scientific Reports 11 (2021), 11463
