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Microplastics Found In Human Stools For the First Time (nytimes.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the stinky-news dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: In a pilot study with a small sample size, researchers looked for microplastics in stool samples of eight people from Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria. To their surprise, every single sample tested positive for the presence of a variety of microplastics (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). In a pilot study with a small sample size, researchers looked for microplastics in stool samples of eight people from Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria. To their surprise, every single sample tested positive for the presence of a variety of microplastics.

The new paper, which was presented Monday at a gastroenterology conference in Vienna, could provide support for marine biologists who have long warned of the dangers posed by microplastics in our oceans. But the paper suggests that microplastics are entering our bodies through other means, as well. To conduct the study, they selected volunteers from each country who kept food diaries for a week and provided stool samples. Dr. Philipp Schwabl, a researcher at the Medical University of Vienna who led the study, and his colleagues analyzed the samples with a spectrometer. Up to nine different kinds of plastics were detected, ranging in size from .002 to .02 inches. The most common plastics detected were polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate -- both major components of plastic bottles and caps.

36 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. Coca Cola in plastic vs glass by drnb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I always preferred the Mexican imported Coca Cola in glass bottles. I suspect the taste improvement was not from cane sugar vs fructose syrup but rather due to glass bottle vs plastic. Beer also tastes better in glass bottles, cans often have an inner plastic coating on the metal. I wonder if the some of the plastic particles are coming from such food packaging? The plastic taste I find annoying has to be coming from something.

    1. Re:Coca Cola in plastic vs glass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The plastic taste I find annoying has to be coming from something.

      Your imagination.

    2. Re:Coca Cola in plastic vs glass by arth1 · · Score: 2

      Glass bottles?

      Examine the bottle cap more closely.

    3. Re:Coca Cola in plastic vs glass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      BPA we pretty much know how to deal with. Dont store the cans in hot places like a closed car, and dont cook your food in the can. Personally id rather a BPA lined can, at least i know what i am dealing with than some mystery "BPA free" lining. Guess what when they take the BPA out of the plastic they replace it with some other chemical, likely not as well studied as BPA is. They dont just say oh we're just going to keep making the plastic exactly the same as before and just not put the BPA in the mix. The BPA served a purpose and you cannot just take it out without replacing it with something else that serves that same purpose as closely as possible.. If you could just take it out and not put something else in it;s place, the plastics companies would have done it long ago since that means they were just spending money on an ingredient in the mix that was not needed.

      You gotta think with your head sometimes. If they could have saved a buck taking BPA out of the mix it would have already been done a LONG time ago. They just replaced it with something else when every mommy on social media started whining and spreading around scare mongering stories.

    4. Re: Coca Cola in plastic vs glass by MachineShedFred · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except it is highly recyclable. Glass just happens to be more expensive than plastic.

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    5. Re:Coca Cola in plastic vs glass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I work in the industry. All aluminum and steel cans have an internal coating. Some types are more visible but they all have it.

    6. Re:Coca Cola in plastic vs glass by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Informative

      Most probably it has to do with the different source of sugar. Coca Cola tastes different in every country regardless of which bottle you get it in. As for beer it could very likely be the case that the beer in the can is fresher. Glass bottles are not ideal for beer in the way they are stored and exposed to light. Beer is sensitive to light which is why many beers use as dark of a glass as possible. In cans beer is kept fully airtight, light tight, and nitrogen blanketed. I always ask this question during brewery tours and the answer is always the same: cans are better for the beer, but our customers think it's cheap which is why we ship it in bottles instead.

      Now just remember this tibbit next time you're drinking a Corona. Maybe it's not a bad beer that is only remotely palatable when combined with lemon, but rather it just went off on account of ignoring hundreds of years of experience of exposing beer to light in clear glass bottles :-)

    7. Re:Coca Cola in plastic vs glass by blackest_k · · Score: 2

      You have no idea how canning plants work ingredients go into the cans are sealed and then cooked.

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      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
    8. Re:Coca Cola in plastic vs glass by hey! · · Score: 2

      Which is what any high-end chef or experimental psychologist will tell you: a lot of taste comes from imagination -- or at least expectations. That's why fine cuisine restaurants put so much effort into arranging food on the plate; if they slapped it on any old way it would taste different.

      Human sense perception has Bayesian inference baked in at the neurological level. The colors you see, for example, are the product of both the light impinging on the retina and also the brain's prior knowledge of the scene .

      This is a fact that accounts, I believe, for at least some police shootings of unarmed suspects. The human visual system does not have the bandwidth or acuity to instantaneously take in a whole scene; instead it picks out a few details and constructs, entirely within the brain, an HD picture of the world. But it's more of an animation than it is a movie. Until you actually direct your fovea to the cellphone in the suspect's hands, it's just a dark blob on your retina. If you "know" there's a gun, your brain replaces that blob with a very clear picture of a gun.

      So it's quite possible, likely even, that the mere knowledge a drink came from a glass bottle could actually alter the taste, even if there is no chemical difference. That doesn't prove there is no chemical difference, however. You need a blind test to see whether human sensory organs can actually pick up the difference.

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  2. Olympics of poop by binarybum · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hope they looked for more than just plastics. The international scope of this study could finally allow us to complete a poop olympics of sorts. Whose poop had the highest amount of micro gold? What about the highest amount of bitcoin (is that in poop?) Which country had the runniest poop? The highest tensile strength? And finally, are the Russians doping their poop?

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    ôó
    1. Re:Olympics of poop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Other way around. BItcoin is 100% poop.

  3. So What by labnet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Plastics go in, plastics go out? Whats the problem?
    Do they get into the blood stream? Do they degrade in the body and produce toxins?

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    1. Re:So What by Crashmarik · · Score: 2

      Obesity in American shows no signs of slowing, and the reasons why it’s so widespread can be traced to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle that keeps people inactive, and eating, for more hours of the day.

      The problem is especially concerning among children and teens, according to the latest study published in Preventive Medicine. The study analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey from 2003-2004 and 2005-2006. More than 12,500 people ages 6 to 84 years wore activity trackers to log how many of their waking hours they spent active and how many they spent sitting

      http://time.com/4821963/teens-...

      Seems some people have a pretty good idea

    2. Re:So What by ArylAkamov · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Depending on the plastic, it can mimic estrogen when ingested (See: Xenoestrogens).
      I suspect this has a lot to do with our recent strange cultural changes.

    3. Re:So What by quantaman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Plastics go in, plastics go out? Whats the problem?
      Do they get into the blood stream? Do they degrade in the body and produce toxins?

      Some go out, we don't really know if they all go out. And even if they all go out we don't really know everything they do along the way. Do they produce toxins, produce bio-active molecules, or even have a physical effect on biological processes?

      My understanding is that most researchers think they're benign... but there's a lot of weird byproducts of our modern economy making it into our bodies, it's hard to imagine there are no negative consequences.

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      I stole this Sig
    4. Re:So What by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Plastics don't make people fat. People get fat because they eat too much. In theory it is possible that certain chemicals in the plastic cause people to eat more, but it is much more likely that hyper-palatable processed foods can do this job on their own, without need for plastics. The food industry employs very smart people who's job it is to get you hooked on their products.

    5. Re:So What by Crashmarik · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No they don't. Your citation basically says that "people got fat because they got fat". It identifies no underlying cause.

      People got fat because they weren't going out and exercising as much.

      Well lets see what you had happening around 1980
      You had video games becoming a big thing.
      You had more television via cable in 1980, back when All In The Family was the best show on television and the original Battlestar Galactica was the best science fiction, there really wasn't much pull from the idiot box All of a sudden you had HBO playing things you actually wanted to see and without commercials then Skinemax came along and started piping just short of hardcore porn into the home yeah that changed the dynamic.

    6. Re:So What by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Food became much more palatable. We got a lot more quick snack type foods

      No we didn't. I grew up in the 1960s. We had Twinkies, DingDongs, HoHos, all sort of chips and dips, and Velveeta "cheese". Pringles were available in 1968. McDonalds was everywhere.

      All these piles of junk food caused almost no change in obesity rates compared to the 1940s and 1950s. Then the 1970s came. No increase in obesity.

      Then the 1980s came. There was no significant change in availability of junk food, processed food, or fast food. But there was a sudden and dramatic change in metabolisms.

  4. But we don't know by fredrated · · Score: 4, Funny

    how much plastic there was in people's stool before the industrial revolution!

    1. Re:But we don't know by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2

      The majority of stool samples collected from archeological sites have been found to be contaminated with microgutta-percha and microshellac.

    2. Re:But we don't know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Careful! You're going to be labelled a plastic poop denier!

  5. Terminology by burtosis · · Score: 2

    Microplastics seems to span the range from 5mm down to 10nm but this seems too broad to me if you are talking safety. 5mm is roughly 20 thousandths of an inch and that's fairly macroscopic with a very small surface area to volume. Even 2 thousandths is visible and not that small, around the size of a salt grain you find in a restaurant dispenser. As you get smaller, the surface area to volume rises, as does the reactivity making very fine particles dangerous. This is why macroscopic titanium dioxide is common in food, but nanoparticles of it are actually toxic and pose health risks, and similarity why if you hold a lighter to a brick of metal nothing happens but if you do the same to metal powder suspended in air, or a fluffy fine steel wool, it burns profusely. I would be far more worried about the particles close to 10nm as the large ones look quite chemically inert, that's why they take so long to break down.

  6. It is High Fructose Corn Syrup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is caused by High Fructose Corn Syrup consumption and obeisity does correlate directly to that:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup

    See the graph showing the sharp rise in total corn based sugars in the 1980's and 1990s, in the *USA*.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup#/media/File:US_Sweetener_consumption,_1966_to_2013.svg

    Your idea of "unsupported by evidence" is laughable.
    HFCS is pure calories in carbohydrate form. The exact thing needed to get fat.
    HFCS's consumption rise corresponding to people getting super fat.

    Whereever HFCS consumption increase, so the people became fat.

    1. Re: It is High Fructose Corn Syrup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      HCFS certainly plays its part, but not because it's any worse for you than sugar, because it's cheaper. Companies started putting it in everything, so our consumption skyrocketed.

    2. Re:It is High Fructose Corn Syrup by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

      It is caused by High Fructose Corn Syrup consumption and obeisity does correlate directly to that

      Correlation is not causation. HFCS consumption went up in America along with obesity. But many other countries also became obese, some worse than America, and they did NOT consume much HFCS, because they have no corn lobby pushing it.

      Dietary surveys of Americans show a weak correlation between HFCS and obesity. Many people that avoid it got fat. Many people drinking several sodas per day stayed skinny. Some sodas are made with cane sugar, and people that drink those get fat at the same rate as people that drink HFCS soda.

      There is plenty of evidence that all types of sugar are bad for you in excess. There is not much evidence that HFCS is worse than other sugars.

      Animal studies are inconclusive. Some show a correlation of HFCS with weight gain, but most do not.

      NIH: Lack of evidence that HFCS causes obesity

      List of countries by BMI. America is 17th.

    3. Re: It is High Fructose Corn Syrup by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fast wasnâ(TM)t a common meal until the 80s.

      Yes it was. Fast food took off in the 1950s, and spread in the 1960s and 1970s. The result was almost NO increase in obesity. Then in the 1980s, with no significant change in fast food availability, obesity rates dramatically increased.

      People werenâ(TM)t slurping frappucinos all day.

      Frappuccinos were not a fad until well into the 1990s, a decade into the obesity epidemic.

      People worked active jobs not sitting in offices.

      Jobs were becoming less "active" for decades, with no increase in obesity. There was no significant change in the early 1980s.

      Itâ(TM)s calories.

      Of course, but saying "people got fat because they ate more" does nothing to explain WHY obesity suddenly skyrocketed with no significant change in availability or affordability of food, no significant change in opportunities for exercise, etc. Why did a hundred million people suddenly start eating more?

    4. Re:It is High Fructose Corn Syrup by dunkelfalke · · Score: 3, Interesting

      and they did NOT consume much HFCS, because they have no corn lobby pushing it

      About that. Other countries use the same shit, just not necessarily made from maize. Here in Germany, for example, it is called "glucose-fructose syrup" and is usually made from potato starch, but the difference between that and HFCS is miniscule. From my personal experience American food is way sweeter compared to the more or less similar stuff in Germany, though, that might be key difference.

      --
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    5. Re: It is High Fructose Corn Syrup by PrimaryConsult · · Score: 2

      A good way to support or refute this theory would be to look at obesity numbers among public transit users versus drivers. Overwhelmingly, public transit use requires more walking (and in the case of Subways/Els/Metros, also involves stairs). Anecdotally, I see less overweight people in Northeast US cities where traffic / parking constraints make driving impractical.

    6. Re: It is High Fructose Corn Syrup by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      computer/network usage became much more widespread during that time.

      Nope. Desktop computers were very rare in the early 1980s. They didn't really take off until the late 80s and early 90s. Obesity rates rose fastest among the poor, the people least likely to use a computer.

  7. Little thought experiment here by Crashmarik · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Take a look at what the food you eat comes packaged in.

    I'll take mine as an example
    Breakfast: Oatmeal, bacon and eggs. Oatmeal packeaged in a plastic container, bacon in a plastic pouch, eggs in in plastic foam carton
    Lunch: Salami onion and cheese on rye (good jewish rye not that supermarket crap): Salami plastic pouch again, cheese plastic pouch, rye bread paper bag
    Dinner: Stir fried vegetables (from my garden)

    Of that only the food I grew myself, and the Rye I got from a kosher baker didn't have plastic involved, and I am not all that sure about the Rye. Is it any wonder there's plastic in poop ?

    The question is what effect does it have ? Probably none as food grade plastics are indigestible and aren't going to be spending that much time in your digestive tract. Kids after all have been eating the damndest things since time immemorial

    1. Re:Little thought experiment here by techno-vampire · · Score: 5, Insightful

      eggs in in plastic foam carton

      Unless you make a habit of eating the eggshells, that's not going to be an issue.

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    2. Re:Little thought experiment here by Crashmarik · · Score: 2

      You're kidding, I hope

  8. New kind of dupe? by Mathinker · · Score: 2

    Is this a new kind of "in-line" dupe? Wasn't the old kind good enough????

    In a pilot study with a small sample size, researchers looked for microplastics in stool samples of eight people from Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria. To their surprise, every single sample tested positive for the presence of a variety of microplastics (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). In a pilot study with a small sample size, researchers looked for microplastics in stool samples of eight people from Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria. To their surprise, every single sample tested positive for the presence of a variety of microplastics.

  9. Small problem now, but by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    microplastics grow up to be room-sized Barney action figures.

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    Table-ized A.I.
  10. Plastic in stools? It's been in chairs forever! by BobC · · Score: 2

    How the hell did this story make it onto /.?
    Has no one there ever been to Ikea?

  11. Well no shxt! by oogoliegoogolie · · Score: 2

    Nearly 100% of our food and drink comes in plastic containers, or metal containers with an internal plastic coating, or wrapped in plastic. Even fruit & vegetables all have those little annoying plastic code stickers.

    Then everything we don't eat but use on a daily basis is made of plastic or comes in plastic containers-keyboards, mouse, pens, pencils, phone/tablet protectors, computer accessories, power tools, yoga pants, stretchy athletic clothing, shoes, socks, gloves, toothbrush, brushes, dental floss, body wash, shampoo, to name just a few.

    On top of that everything we buy is comes in plastic shrink molding or wrapped in layers of plastic.

    Is it really surprising that some of this stuff wears off and gets into our bodies?