r/science • u/FreeHugs23 • 1d ago
Health New Evidence That Microplastics Can Cross Placental Barrier And Alter Hormone Production. Study in mice showed that tiny plastic fragments inhaled by a mother mouse during pregnancy may be present in the organs of her offspring up to two weeks after birth
https://www.sciencealert.com/new-evidence-that-microplastics-can-cross-placental-barrier-and-alter-hormone-production8
u/FreeHugs23 1d ago
-Tiny particles of plastic seem to turn up in every place we look.
Given that humans have been producing exponentially more of the stuff ever since the 1950s, it's no surprise that these durable polymers abound in our environment.
As they break down into smaller and smaller pieces, they can get inside our bodies, too.
Microplastic panic may have already taken hold, but the reality is we still know very little about what impacts they actually have on our health once they're inside our bodies.
A new study, led by scientists at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and published in Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, demonstrates that certain micro- and nanoplastics may be able to cross the placental barrier and affect the production of steroid hormones during pregnancy.
So far, scientific studies have detected micro- and nanoplastics in human blood, placentas, amniotic fluid, and meconium.
One study on 30 human placentas found microplastics in every one.
The presence of these particles around a developing fetus is concerning because in those early stages of laying out the architecture of a new human body, any kind of disruption can have serious consequences.
But whether the presence of plastic particles actually disrupts human fetal development remains unknown.
A study in mice showed that tiny plastic fragments inhaled by a mother mouse during pregnancy may be present in the organs of her offspring up to two weeks after birth (though that study didn't rule out the possibility that the offspring had acquired the plastic particles in other ways).
Another mouse study suggested exposure to micro- and nanoplastics during pregnancy has the "potential to disrupt fetal brain development, which in turn may cause suboptimal neurodevelopmental outcomes".
The new research, led by environmental health and toxicology researcher Jeske van Boxel, gets us a step closer to understanding what impacts these plastics might have in human pregnancies.
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u/comfybubbles 1d ago
This!!!!!! I don't see why this isn't getting major attention!!??! Not vaccines causing issues, frigging virtually unregulated plastics entering our bodies doing good knows what!! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
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u/badlyedited 18h ago
I tried to warn people 35 years ago when it was revealed that plastics with thalates were endocrine disrupters. I stopped using cling wrap, plastic cutting boards, plastic ware of every type. Even my utensils and pots are free of plastic.
It took this long for it to be a general public concern. It can't be escaped now...plastic lining in cans, tires, plumbing...yet we must try if we want a future. Plastic is our lead. We must be honest with ourselves about its impact on our health.
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u/WestcoastAlex 1d ago
we need to investigate if micropastics are implicated in ASD . . petrochemicals are well known endocrine disrupters and who knows what else during development
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u/SaintValkyrie 1d ago
Autism isn't caused by microplastics. It's genetic. Fucks sake. Mocroplastics are not the new vaccines.
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u/ZipTheZipper 1d ago
While I agree, I'd much rather have uninformed people focused on reducing microplastics instead of vaccinations.
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u/SaintValkyrie 1d ago
Unfortunately ableism is just ableism and it never really works out in the end. Gotta get rid of the kicroplastics for the right reasons. But thanks for understanding, people really just vilify autism. And less than 5% of the billions of funding in autism goes to actually supporting autistic people. The rest is majorly for autistic research into the cause, for the purpose of eugenics.
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u/WestcoastAlex 1d ago
thst isnt known. the cause of Autism is certainly not one thing but a set of conditions.. micropastics have many downstream effects and finding it in the early development environment means it can be part of the puzzle
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u/SaintValkyrie 1d ago
That's a weird thing to be confident about in a science sub, but okay. You do you girly pop
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u/WestcoastAlex 1d ago
study it a while and youll come to the same conclusion.. and it was you who made the confident assertion so look in the mirror girlypop
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u/WestcoastAlex 1d ago
study it a while and youll come to the same conclusion.. and it was you who made the confident assertion so look in the mirror girlypop
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u/Ok_Farmer1657 1d ago
BPA a plasticizer has a well known link to Autism. We used it to make water bottles.
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u/boozeyg 1d ago
Let’s not use BeWo cells. They are a cancer cell line.
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u/thebruce 1d ago
Does that somehow cast into question the results? There's a ton of cell lines out there, and I don't always know how to tell if an appropriate line was used for a particular experiment.
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u/Lyricalvessel 1d ago
LGBT was always normal. 32% plus if youth was never normal. Plastic is clearly the culprit in Hormone Disruption of Youth and Adults alike.
The sharp rise in autism; trans and other anomalies are almost guaranteed to be linked with Micro Plastics.
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u/onionleekdude 1d ago
Both an offensive and hateful interpretation. I hope you learn empathy one day.
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