Microplastics: what impact on health?

This article is taken from the monthly Sciences et Avenir – La Recherche ndeg932, dated October 2024.

At the beginning of the year, a team from Peking University (China) attempted with a meta-study to take stock of all the knowledge relating to the toxicity of the plastics that we ingest. The preliminary conclusions are not reassuring. In summary, while highlighting the cruel lack of data concerning the exact impact of microplastics on human health, their interactions with pathogenic bacteria and chemical agents, the effect of their physicochemical properties and their migrations in the body over time, the researchers were able to highlight toxic and inflammatory effects of these particles on the respiratory, digestive, nervous, cardiovascular, immune and reproductive systems.