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Microplastics Found In 90 Percent of Table Salt (nationalgeographic.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from National Geographic: New research shows microplastics in 90 percent of the table salt brands sampled worldwide. Of 39 salt brands tested, 36 had microplastics in them, according to a new analysis by researchers in South Korea and Greenpeace East Asia. Salt samples from 21 countries in Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Asia were analyzed. The three brands that did not contain microplastics are from Taiwan (refined sea salt), China (refined rock salt), and France (unrefined sea salt produced by solar evaporation). The study was published this month in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
The density of microplastics found in salt varied dramatically among different brands, but those from Asian brands were especially high, the study found. The highest quantities of microplastics were found in salt sold in Indonesia. Asia is a hot spot for plastic pollution, and Indonesia -- with 34,000 miles (54,720 km) of coastline -- ranked in an unrelated 2015 study as suffering the second-worst level of plastic pollution in the world. In another indicator of the geographic density of plastic pollution, microplastics levels were highest in sea salt, followed by lake salt and then rock salt. Even though the study found that the average adult consumes approximately 2,000 microplastics per year through salt, it's not clear what the health consequences are.
The density of microplastics found in salt varied dramatically among different brands, but those from Asian brands were especially high, the study found. The highest quantities of microplastics were found in salt sold in Indonesia. Asia is a hot spot for plastic pollution, and Indonesia -- with 34,000 miles (54,720 km) of coastline -- ranked in an unrelated 2015 study as suffering the second-worst level of plastic pollution in the world. In another indicator of the geographic density of plastic pollution, microplastics levels were highest in sea salt, followed by lake salt and then rock salt. Even though the study found that the average adult consumes approximately 2,000 microplastics per year through salt, it's not clear what the health consequences are.
Are there any health implications of micro plastics in salt? That was suspiciously left out of the article for some reason.
FUD? I think it does shed light on just how pervasive plastics are in our world now in ways we might not realize, especially when it comes to things that the people normally think are relatively pure and "clean", such as salt. It does show how unaware the effects on humans are - either at the micro level with table salt, or at the macro level when you combine all sources of uplastics in typical diets around the world.
Plastics contain more than just long-chain polymers. There are just gobs of different chemicals that can be locked up inside the structure of a given plastic which then slowly leach out over time. We've found that many of them are carcinogenic (or their breakdown products are carcinogenic), or even bio-mimics, such as BPA, and have been attributed to hormone-based diseases. We just don't know the extent of the deleterious effect all this has on ourselves, not to mention our food sources. So, the focus is not weird. It's actually really fsckin' important.
Sigh.
Cancer's what you die of if you don't die of anything else. Sure there are things that increase your chances of cancer (i.e. shit that kills you faster), but cancer rates increasing means nothing - it means you didn't die of all the other stuff, basically.
Autism - that's been around forever, but never been categorised and recorded. That's why all the graphs for diagnosis of it go up. It took until the late 90's to get a standardised definition that wasn't constantly having other things lumped into it (i.e. ASD instead of ten different conditions), or wasn't just an unspecified "psychiatric" condition. Plus there's evidence it's genetic.
Obesity rates are to do an overabundance of food and a lack of self-control. Grown adults filling fridges full of crap. You want to find the cause of that, open your own fridge.
What microplastics would have to do with any of them, I wouldn't be able to fathom. But, hey, I just have a degree in maths and can read papers and statistics properly.
So 99.99999% pure isn't pure enough?
No. Have you? My time is worth more than a Slashdot comment pays.
Tell me, do you have the same kind of evidence to the contrary? Or even anything that hints at that? Because something so pervasive (no dispute there) and damaging as you claim would show up, no?
I don't need to do your homework for you to hypothesise that this is a for-eyeballs article which - although probably true in the extent of microplastic invasion - is completely misleading... like the "you've breathed a molecule from Caesar's dying breathe" kinda thing.
There is zero evidence, for example, that such microplastic presence, even in a human body, has any significant statistical correlation whatsoever to anything. And it would be quite easy to test, and check historical data for that. It would show, I would hypothesise, in coastal populations, especially those who swim or drink seawater (refined or not) compared to those who drink from frreshwater sources, and increase rapidly from the 1950's onwards as plastics became mainstream.
Unfortunately for you, the rate for a decent scientist to perform such a study or analysis with any amount of rigour is outside your (and my) means.
Tell me, have you read every medical paper that doesn't mention microplastics to see if the effects measured could be down to microplastics? No? Why? Because that's fecking ridiculous argument.