Our brain is full of plastic.
This is Fun news Earlier this week, I picked up a dinner takeout packaged in plastic containers, was trapped in a plastic bag, and accompanied by a styrofoam cup. I thought the culture of convenience was killing us.
But is it? This is a problem of numerous studies that seek microscopic fragments of our plastic. artery,,, height and liverThe result is that our sea, food, soil and air are filled with some tupperware. Scientists still don’t know what this plastic is doing to us. And because it takes time to study, scientists just continue to suck, eat and drink small plastic pieces while trying to answer questions.
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why? Regulatory measures are not actually We have stopped the US plastic industry Even if clean air and water advocates try to fight the industry’s pollution problems in court, more plastic is shaved. Grassroots To delay the allowance of more plants that pour all the toxic chemicals. And now, the president returns to the office, and saw fossil fuel benefits (if oil and natural gas is a plastic pioneer). It requires the use of plastic strawsAnd the administration bent in hell scary EPA mission To keep it safely rather than giving power.
On the other hand, we do not know what all these plastic are doing to us. And the current person seems to be worried about anyone.
Since everything that enters our body is filtered through our liver and kidney, plastic bits are not amazing. Find their way With that institution. It is the same as our heart. Fine fluids can enter the blood and get stuck in a clogged artery. But our brain is designed to prevent things through blood brain barriers. Researchers behind Brain Plastics Study think that small fragments of plastics are riding on fat molecules to enter brain cells. And the worse is that the researchers think In the whole human brain: 10 grams. Imagine 2.5 teaspoons of sugar. Sub with plastic now. venomous.
They looked at the brain preserved about 10 years ago and compared it with last year’s brain. The fresh brain has more plastic than the old brain. And yes. They described all the plastics needed to hold onto and manipulate the brain in the case of tubes and plastic such as such plastic. Therefore, our body, surrounded by more and more plastic every year, is the minimum storage tank and the worst case with constant attack.
How is this happening? chemistry. capitalism. Convenience culture. To make plastic, the oil refinery separates hydrocarbons, then decomposes this hydrocarbons into smaller compounds such as ethylene or propylene. Then do a small chemistry and attach this small compound to a repeated structure called a polymer. Then this polymer is made of other chemicals that give different characteristics to sprinkle juice to make a plastic, a plastic, heat and other plastics.
Millions of tons of plastic waste ends in the sea every year, and some plastic takes 1,000 years. Over time, the larger plastic sculptures are broken down into microflastics and accumulate in marine life and can enter human food chains.
As the renewable energy and electric vehicles are charged nationwide, our fossil fuel industry is a variety of ways, while lowering demand for gas. And for great success; The United States was produced In 2023, 130 billion pounds of plastic. Chemists try to find a cleaner and more eco -friendly way of creating and disassembling plastics, but the manufacturing is as follows. Dirty. So here, we are surrounded by these things that will never disappear and slowly build up in us.
There are thousands of plastics and each with its own chemical recipe. Since EPA generally regulates individual chemicals, it is basically impossible to follow a single component of plastics, not chemical groups based on what they do. Instead Toxic substance management methodBIDEN management began to regulate chemicals due to known health effects. Also plastic precursor And additives. But this process can take several years, and its destiny looks stupid in the new administration. The EPA’s single chemical approach was recently called by the Tobacco Research Institute. Scientific Sculpt the WHACK-A-MOLE strategy. Here, adjustment there, and now there is one more plastic mall in the EPA.
Too many moles, the driving force to build more refiners, the general inability for plastic recycling, where we slowly Homo plastic.
Scary. But is it dangerous?
maybe.
There is a lab that shows that microplastics cause biochemical changes. cell and animal We can see human being People with various diseases. In other words, cells are not people and animals are a model that we think we are happening to people.
But recently, the Italian researcher group I followed 257 people Plaque artery. They found that 20 %of those who participated in a study with plaque containing fine fluids died in a heart attack, stroke or almost three years later, and that they had a heart attack, stroke or death compared to 7.5 %of those who did not. In cell studies, people with microplastics also tended to show the biochemical signature of inflammation. And people with microplastics on the carotid artery tend to show some of the same signatures more often than those who do not.
Yes. The correlation is not the same as the cause, but it is quite amazing. But we live in a country we really believe. Meanwhile, people in the shadows of plastic plants in Louisiana are cancer. Fish, meat to save our hearts, It is full of plastic What we know now can prevent the arteries. The brain of dementia patients is It is full of plastic.
So recycle all plastic containers! Cancel food delivery! Take your bag to the grocery store! An amazingly cunning method of converting the responsibility of environmental disaster into individuals. Do not solve the wasteful and destructive plastic chemical problem, but instruct people to stop using the product.
meantime, Whole country I’m trying to stop using too many plastic. And some places in the United States Prohibit certain plastics. We can be the same as the main. This creates a large company that uses plastic. It helps to handle waste. The responsibility for plastics is not only consumers.
I dump a huge technical product with all the time on the beach covered with plastic gravel, a landfill overflowing with water bottles, and a sad beige plastic peel. Chemistry is beautiful. When and when we will be responsible for the petrochemical industry for the ugliness?
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or the author must be Scientific American.
