Why Doctors Should Be Aware of Microplastic Pollution

In this video, Professor Dick Vethaak, a toxicologist with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Deltares, discusses recent research on the presence of microplastics in human blood, and what clinicians and healthcare institutions can do to manage this issue in the coming years and decades.

The following is a transcript of his remarks:

Microplastics are present everywhere in the global biosphere, and in fact, we drink, we eat, and breathe in microplastics continuously — all the time. So it’s not surprising, you know, that obviously there are so much microplastics around us that we can even now find it in our cells, in our body liquids, and also in our tissues.

So far there are only a handful of studies that have detected microplastics in human [bodies]. These include, for example, [microplastics in] the placenta, meconium — the first stool of a newborn — it has been detected in the lung tissue of living patients, in colon tissue biopsies, and then in our study, also in whole blood of healthy donors.

But I have to tell you this: These are the first pioneer studies. So, obviously they use different methods. They often focus only on large-particle sizes, and basically there’s no standardized method. The analytic method is not standardized, meaning that you cannot compare these results anyhow. And another thing is, because these are really done often using small sample sizes, it’s impossible to extrapolate that to the general population.

None of these studies actually say anything or tell us anything about whether these levels they find are safe or unsafe so obviously we need to do much more research there. If you look at occupational studies, animal experiments, and also recent work done with human cell models, human organoids, et cetera, then I think there are strong indications for health effects and there’s a whole range of health effects we can mention here.

For example, a major concern is with the particle toxicity of these plastic particles in the cells, a physical effect that can cause inflammatory and immune reactions. There are studies that indicate DNA damage as well as neurotoxic, developmental, and also metabolic effects. Very recently, there was a study with mice; I think that they found effects on the kidney. And I recently also wrote, with colleagues from Austria, a review paper on the potential carcinogenic effects of these plastic particles.

I think the medical sector is getting more aware of the potential emerging illnesses and syndromes that could be related to plastic particle pollution. So I think it’s good for the medical specialists and doctors to understand and know about this emerging problem. It’s a problem that’ll increase in the coming decades. Our exposure to the particles, but also the chemicals, will likely increase. That’s pretty sure. And we can see that plastic has quite a share in that as well.

Of course you can think about surgeries, autopsies, or pathological investigations. For example, urologists can keep an eye on kidney disease, you can also think about gastrointestinal specialists that should be aware of the fact that maybe the high consumption of micro- and nanoplastics can trigger inflammatory bowel disease, et cetera. So there are quite some clues there. I think if you are aware of that as a medical doctor, that could help a lot.

And of course you also have the education of the patients and the staff about the use of plastics. What we try to do in our multidisciplinary projects is to try to eliminate the bad and ugly plastics, and you can do the same from the hospital. Try to eliminate the bad and ugly plastics there. Look for ways to separate and recycle plastic waste, for example, waste from the endoscopy room. Maybe you can recycle it partly, et cetera. I think several hospitals in the Netherlands are currently doing this already, so there are examples where hospitals are trying to do that.

So for the interested medical doctors and medical researchers, I think this is a new and very exciting field of research, and it is also very complex research. And we really need you and your expertise to participate in multidisciplinary research programs. I think that is the way forward to elucidate possible plastic- or microplastic-associated health problems and to reduce diseases in the coming decades.

So medical doctors and specialists, you play and are going to play an increasing and indispensable role in this. Of course, that is my personal expectation of you, but I think we can see it already happening in Europe, for example, where we have these multidisciplinary projects together with hospitals. I’m an environmental toxicologist, and I work together with medical specialists, and they have knowledge and they have tools and methods that we don’t have.

If you put everything together: our knowledge, and also you put — let’s say the polymer chemists there as well, and the politicians — that is a very strong combination. And this is where we should go in the coming years, and maybe even decades, to investigate this problem and maybe, hopefully, to come to a serious conclusion that we are not dealing with a very serious health problem, but I’m not sure about that.