According to Nature Medicine, human brains have the highest concentration of microplastics of any other organ. The concentration of microplastics is also increasing over time.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, microplastics are "plastic particles ranging in size from 5 millimeters (mm), which is about the size of a pencil eraser, to 1 nanometer (nm). For comparison, a strand of human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide."
Microplastics become smaller and less noticeable through weathering and digestive tracks of animals and humans.
Nature Medicine published a medical journal researching microplastics in humans. The journal concluded that, over the last eight years, levels of microplastics found in human bodies have increased by 50%. Research conducted on human liver, kidney and brain samples showed that out of the three, the human brain had the highest levels of microplastics as well.
The journal showed that people with dementia had up to 10 times the levels of microplastic in their brains than the other samples. The researchers noted that this journal does not necessarily prove microplastics as a cause of dementia but that dementia might increase the levels of microplastics in the brain.
How do we consume microplastics?
Microplastics are everywhere. They are found in the air we breathe, the food we eat and the clothes we wear. Microplastics are found in bottled water as well as tap water.
A study from Frontier showed that microplastics are found in 99% of seafood, with the highest concentration in shrimp.
Matthew Campen, a professor at the University of New Mexico, the institution that conducted the research, spoke to the UNM Health Science Center news team earlier this February.
"The way we irrigate fields with plastic-contaminated water, we postulate that the plastics build up there." Campen said, "We feed those crops to our livestock. We take the manure and put it back on the field, so there may be a sort of feed-forward biomagnification."
Campen also said that the team found high concentrations of plastic in meat bought at grocery stores.
Consumption of these microplastics, is in a sense, inevitable due to packaging and "recycling" of the microplastics from the soil. Microplastics have even been found to be present in Antarctica.
Future of microplastics?
The future of microplastics is unknown, though the levels of microplastics in the human body are increasing rapidly.
A Gallup poll was conducted about how Americans feel about the future of the environment. The survey shows waves of concern in 2006-2008.
As of now, 57% of Americans feel as though the quality of the environment is getting worse, though the reason behind it is unclear. Still, 35% of Americans believe the environment is getting better and 5% think it's staying the same.
"The rate of accumulation they found [in humans] mirrors the increasing amounts of plastics waste on the planet," Campen said in the UNM article. "I never would have imagined it was this high. I certainly don't feel comfortable with this much plastic in my brain, and I don't need to wait around 30 more years to find out what happens if the concentrations quadruple."