Your brain may contain up to one tablespoon of microplastics

Summary: Microplastics accumulate in the organs

Micro and nanoplastics have become pervasive, they are with us, unseen. They are part of the food we eat and the liquids we ingest. They accumulate in our organs, especially in the brain and this may have negative health efects.

Micro and Nanoplastics are everywhere

According to a recent preprint (1), microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs) make up to 0.5% of your brain mass.

Considering an average brain weighs about 1.3 kg, our brains contain roughly 6.5 g of these nano and microplastics (half a tablespoon full of jagged nano-sized polymers).

This value is 50% higher than the findings in a previous study conducted in 2016 (both studies used brain autopsies of subjects aged 40 to 50).
The brain levels are 7 to 30 times higher than those found in the liver or kidneys (whose function is to detox the body), which means something is concentrating the plastics in the brain.

It appears that the high blood flow to the brain and its higher content of fat increase its uptake of MNPs. While liver and kidneys tend to excrete the MNPs. However, all organs showed higher levels of MNPs compared to 2016.

Further research will try to find out if these plastics cause neurodegenerative diseases. Note that anionic nanoplastics interfere with protein aggregation so there may be a link between them and Alzheimer's Disease.

Plastics make their way into your body through bottled and water and drinks (plastic bottles taint them), food (animals eat fodder packed in plastic bags) .or from the plastic wastes washed into the rivers and seas (fish). This also includes the rubber worn off your tires by abrasion with the roadways.

The tiny particles were described by the researchers as "aged, shard-like plasltic remnants across a wide range of sizes."

References and Further Reading

(1) Matthew Campen, Alexander Nihart, Marcus Garcia, Rui Liu, Marian Olewine, et al. (2024). Bioaccumulation of Microplastics in Decedent Human Brains Assessed by Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry. This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. Research Square, May 06, 2024