Expert Available on the Impact of Microplastics on Human Health

Dr Fay Couceiro is a Reader in Biogeochemistry and Environmental Pollution at the University of Portsmouth. The primary purpose of her research is to define the sources and fates of pollutants in the environment and develop interventions to prevent or mitigate their impact.

“This is an extremely interesting study. The paper is actually a method paper to show that it is possible to determine plastic in blood, and how to do it. They have then gone on to show data using this method from 22 individuals. Previously there have been doubts about the reliability of data from pathology/clinical samples due to the lack of procedural blanks, where it is thought there has likely been contamination of samples through plastics in air or from equipment. This research has taken a serious look at that issue and addressed it in a number of ways, by taking a large number of blank samples and including recovery data. This gives a lot of credibility to the data and I would say the data given is robust and will stand up to scrutiny.

“Limitations to the paper are that it is only a sample from 22 people and there is no data on what exposure levels those individuals may have had. As indicated in the paper itself, extrapolation to proportions of all humans likely to have this quantity of plastic in their blood is somewhat premature. However, considering the diligence of the authors in their experimental design and the data from others looking at microplastics in humans and animals (placenta, liver, kidneys), it is sensible to be asking questions about what the health consequences of this might be. The methods used here also only give a total value in weight of plastic, not the size and number of particles, which will be needed in the future as those are important in working out health implications. Despite this, the ability to detect its presence is critical to us realising the urgency in our need to do more research in this area. After all, blood links all the organs of our body and if plastic is there, it could be anywhere in us.”