Micro and nanoplastics are growing in the human brain, raising the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death by 4.5 times

The amount of microplastics in human bodies is increasing at a quick rate in general but in the brain more so than in other areas of the body. This is representative of extreme human body threat. Much more ultra-fine fragments of plastics are accumulating in the brain than in the liver or in the kidneys. All of these have emerged in research in the widely considered global journal Nature Medicine.

If the structure of the brain at a basic level is changed by microplastics, then chances of heart attack, stroke, and death increase by 4.5-fold. According to research, in many postmortem cases that have happened from the year 1997 to the year 2024, microplastics and nanoplastics in the tissues of the brain have appeared to increase in proportion. Similarly, microscopic fragments of plastics have appeared in tissues of the liver and kidneys as well. New methods have been used to investigate tissues of the liver, kidney, and brain. There have been analyzed in total 52 tissues of the brain of which tissues of the year 2016 have been 28 while tissues of the year 2024 have been 24. Evidence of plastic presence was found in all tissues.

The research has also found evidence of microplastics in human blood, mother's milk, placenta, and other parts of the body. However, more research is needed to determine the extent to which these microparticles can affect health. Nevertheless, various scientific studies have warned that microplastics are becoming a major threat to human health. The results of this latest study show that the impact of plastic pollution is continuously deepening. Plastic pollution has become a serious problem in the last five decades. From the high mountains to the depths of the sea, there is hardly any corner of the earth left where plastic has not reached.

The presence of microplastics was found to be much higher in the brains of dementia patients than in healthy people. It was six times more than normal people. Scientists believe that the neural degradation caused by dementia may increase the amount of microplastics. However, it is not clear whether microplastics cause dementia or not.

The amount of plastic in the liver and kidney samples collected in 2016 was almost the same, but it was much higher in the brain. Fine particles of plastic were found more in the liver and brain samples of 2024 than in 2016. Scientists compared these findings with brain tissues taken between 1997 and 2013 and found that the level of microplastics has increased rapidly in recent years.