A new study published in the journal Environment International stated that researchers in the Netherlands discovered a way of analyzing human blood to detect microplastics and evaluate their impact on human health.

Several investigations have discovered evidence of plastics in the human body, particularly plastic additives like biphenyl and phthalates that have been detected in human urine and feces.

Blood samples of 22 healthy volunteers were taken and filtered to collect any plastic particles between 700 nanometers (nm) and 500,000 nm using glass fiber filters to avoid any plastic contamination. The samples were processed by double-shot pyrolysis to produce chromatograms from which the presence of poly (methyl methylacrylate) (PMMA); polypropylene (PP); polymerized styrene (PS), polyethylene (PE), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) was evaluated.

It was observed that more than three-quarters of the blood samples had a quantifiable amount of plastic particles, with PET being the most common, and PP being undetectable. Microparticles of four common plastics were discovered in blood samples from 17 of 22 healthy persons.

To understand whether the plastic particles were present in the plasma or were being carried by specific cell types and what effect these microplastics had on different organs and the overall well-being of an individual further studies are recommended. (Medical News Today. April 1, 2022)