People quite literally have plastic on their brain — or, more accurately, in it. A new study detected microplastics in human brains at much higher concentrations than in other organs.
Microplastics are tiny pieces of broken-down polymers. They are building up in the air, water, and soil. They have also been detected in human livers, kidneys, placentas, and testes.
However, their accumulation in the brain appears to be increasing much faster and at higher concentrations than in those other organs, according to the Nature Medicine study.
That plastic brain buildup has increased 50 percent over the past eight years — a rate that mirrors the growth of plastic waste on this planet.
“This really changes the landscape,” Matthew Campen, University of New Mexico toxicologist and an author of the paper, said in a news release. “It makes it so much more personal.”
The study also noted that much of the ...
