Plastic is inside us, between water and food it's as if we eat a credit card a week

The researchers' alarm (IBFM-CNR):"Acute and chronic exposure to polystyrene particles is a risk factor for colon cancer"

ROME - Between water and food we now ingest the plastic equivalent of a credit card every week. Micro and nano plastics are part of us, literally:various literature data demonstrate the presence of micro and nano plastic particles along the entire food chain.Fragments have been found in fish, meat, fruit and vegetables (apples and carrots the most contaminated), honey, sugar, salt and beer.

“It is estimated that we can ingest from 0.1 to 5 grams of invisible pieces of plastic per week, almost equal to that of a credit card“.The doctor declared it to the Dire Agency Daniela Gaglio, scientific director of the Metabolomics Infrastructure of the Institute of Bioimaging and Molecular Physiology (IBFM), of the National Research Council (CNR).The team of researchers, directed by Professor Danilo Porro and coordinated by Daniela Gaglio, have demonstrated experimentally that cells subjected to acute and chronic exposure to polystyrene particles show an alteration of metabolism and an increase in oxidative stress (Bonanomi et al., 2022).With its research, the CNR has therefore highlighted the potential effect that these micro and nanoparticles can have on health.

CARCINOGENIC PLASTIC

“The study shows – continues the expert – that polystyrene micro- and nanoparticles absorbed by human colon cells induce changes in metabolism similar to those induced by the toxic agent azoxymethane:the latter is a carcinogenic and neurotoxic molecule that has been much studied precisely for its ability to induce colon cancer.What emerges from the study carried out using innovative metabolomics approaches (the science that studies metabolism and metabolic processes in detail) is that healthy human colon cells, subjected to both acute and chronic exposure to polystyrene particles, show an alteration metabolism and an increase in oxidative stress.Finally, the study highlighted that Plastic exposure induces metabolic alterations typically found in cancerous formations, indicating a potential action of micro and nano plastics as a colon cancer risk factor.To date, this is one of the few studies that provides information on what the effect of plastic could be on our body."

PLASTIC IS IN 93% OF WATER BOTTLES

Other recent studies conducted on tap, bottled and spring water have shown that microparticles are present in all water sources analyzed (Cox et al., 2019).Analysis of tap water from 159 different sources showed that 81% of the samples contained microparticles smaller than 5 mm (Kosuth et al., 2018).Other studies conducted on 259 water bottles from 11 different brands and 27 different batches showed that 93% of the samples contained plastic microparticles (Mason et al., 2018).Another study found high levels of microplastics in mineral water bottled in 22 different multi-use plastic materials (compared to single-use plastic or cardboard containers), as well as in glass bottles (Schymanski et al., 2018).

“This confirms - concludes Daniela Gaglio - how interesting the study by Qian et al., published in the journal PNAS, is for the scientific community also considering that particles of micro and nano plastic have been found in various organs:colon, lung, heart and placenta.As the authors correctly state, very little is known about the effect these particles have on our organism."