The Everyday Items Exposing You to Microplastics | Dana Zhaxylykova

0:00Dr Karan: Have you ever wondered what microplastics are doing inside your body? Well, today we're going to find out. Even if you try to remove all plastics in your life, you will still be exposed because microplastics were found in water, in air, everywhere basically, in clouds. More than a third of all dust is already microplastics. They will be accumulated in your lungs. I'm Dr Karan and in this podcast I speak to the world's foremost experts in science and medicine to cut through the BS of modern health advice. Thanks as always to Throne Science for sponsoring the show, the world's first hands-free continuous gut health tracking device that can measure your hydration and prostate health with every flush.

0:37Dr Karan: And also to Loam Science, the world's first invisible fiber blend with its own clinical trials. Dana, there's so much noise and fear-mongering and associations with negative health outcomes with microplastics and these other forever chemicals. Before we dive into what they can actually do to human health, what potential they may have for harm and associated with other diseases, I think first people should actually understand beyond the headlines, what actually are microplastics? Yeah, so basically microplastics are just small particles of plastic. So to be called microplastic, it should be less than five millimeters in size.

1:19So any plastic that is less than five millimeters is considered microplastic.

1:23Dr Karan: Even though we've heard this, you know, all this kind of like scary headlines about these forever chemicals and microplastics more so in the last couple of years, certainly, you know, probably since 2020, I've heard a lot of scary things about it online, in the news. We've had microplastics accumulating in our bodies for decades. Why wasn't it such a big problem before? Is it just the evolution of research and more research coming out, pointing blame in what these can do to our health? Yeah, that could be one of the things, but also like plastic is a relatively really new material comparing to other like wood, metals or anything like this that been around for thousands of years.

2:05Plastic has been around only for one century, basically. Not only that, but the research about microplastics started only in 2004. So basically 20 years ago. and even then it wasn't that popular. So the trend only became in research about microplastic like around 10 years ago and in science 10 years ago is almost nothing, right? Another thing is it probably wasn't that much of a problem like for example 30 or 40 years ago when plastic wasn't that widespread as it is right now. Another thing is yeah we definitely keep producing more and more plastic every year. So when we compare in 1950s, it was only 2 million tons of plastic that was produced in one year.

2:54Right now, in 2024, for example, it was around 200 million tons of plastic per year. So it's 100 fold increased the production only. And it's only going to increase.

3:08Dr Karan: I mean, for you as a microplastics researcher, what is the biggest worry for microplastics based on the evolving research over the last two decades? So I'm more in environmental field, in environmental research. So I know more about the environmental effects of microplastics and it's definitely not looking good. Starting from just simple pollution, right? We see even we see photos of different animals that die because of plastic and microplastic because it's not easy for them to differentiate food from microplastics. And around 100 ,000 marine animals die just because of the plastic pollution, like the physical aspect of it.

3:51Also, there's new research that came like two years ago that was basically stating that microplastics are choking plankton. And plankton is the base of the food chain. If we lose plankton, we will definitely start losing more and more species, which is detrimental for our ecosystem and for us, because we are part of the ecosystem, right? And this is just the physical presence of microplastics. There's also another thing, which is the chemicals that are also on top of microplastics. And for example, there's one new area of research on microplastic is how microplastics are affecting plants. and it's also a big big topic that is only been in in popularity like for the last five years but basically what researchers are seeing is that microplastics are in our soils our soil is already polluted by microplastics and unfortunately this makes plants grow less so there were some experiments where they put plants into relatively clean soil and then plants in the microplastic contaminated soils and they compare it after some time and those that were grown on the polluted soils were smaller in size the roots were shorter they were basically um weight the weight was less and also the photosynthesis rate was less and they also did a very very big research to estimate how microplastics affect photosynthesis of plants and on the global estimate they said like around And photosynthesis is reduced by 7 % to 12 % just because of microplastics alone.

5:33And while it may seem like a small number, like 7 % to 12%, it will in the end mean that we are losing up to 300 million tons of food in crops and in different yields. Because basically photosynthesis means oxygen and also yield, right? And when we lose photosynthesis, we lose this yield. So this is also very important to understand that it affects environment in a bad way. And we are part of the environment. When we talk about human health, it's also very, very preliminary. Not a lot of research is done. And it's also very difficult to do research on microplastic because, you know, there are so many different types of plastics.

6:19We only know seven, right? Like polypropylene, polystyrene, polyethylene, and so on. but there are hundreds of different types of plastic. So when we talk about microplastic research, usually the research is done on like three, five, or maximum seven of plastic types. Another thing is that long-term research is not available yet because we were not being exposed to microplastic for such a long time, right? So there are a lot of difficulties in microplastic. Another thing is the chemicals, microplastics, they can act as sponges. So they attract or absorb different chemicals on top of it. So each new microplastic will have a different set of chemicals on top of it.

7:03So it all leads to this confusion in the research itself. But there are definitely some preliminary research that we can see some research done on different animals like mice, lab mice and stuff on different fish. And we can see that it's also affecting them, not in a good way. First thing that I usually highlight is the endocrine disruptions that we can see also because of different plastic associated chemicals that are usually endocrine disrupting chemicals like BPA or PFAS that we hear a lot about. And they were proved to be endocrine disrupting.

7:43Dr Karan: Well, there's something that people probably don't appreciate enough is that whilst there's a lot of association between the impact of microplastics on human health directly, as you mentioned, endocrine disruption, maybe affecting the gut barrier and so many other things. The indirect effect to human health is also pretty significant, not only to the environment, but actually directly things we consume. Plankton, bottom of the food chain, consuming microplastics or being kind of tarred with microplastics and then bioaccumulating up the food chain. But also, if the plants are negatively affected by microplastics in the soil, and then the yield going down, and then potentially the nutrient quality of the plants going down, we are then getting fewer nutrients in our typical plant diet than we were several decades ago before microplastics existed.

8:31Dr Karan: And we know that nutrient deficiencies will also have a significant impact on human health. So actually, there's that indirect and direct effect. Yeah, that's true. And that is what is very exciting and not in a good way, maybe, but it's very exciting by microplastic because it definitely affects so many different areas of our lives. Do we have an idea about how much microplastics that we consume from eating plants, from eating meat and animals? There are some popular estimates, like we're ingesting a credit card towards of plastic every week. But I usually say it's a myth because it's really difficult to estimate how much plastic we consume.

9:17It could be less, it could be more. But this statement is not entirely true in my opinion. And this number was taken from a paper that was done not in a very correct way.

9:28Dr Karan: Yeah, I think that's often a scary, nice clickbait headline for a lot of people and they can relate to it. They know it's a credit card size bit of microplastics. I guess the question is, we're exposed to microplastics. If you live on Earth, you just cannot avoid microplastics in the water, in the air, everything. But what are some of the kind of most common everyday items that are leaking microplastics into us? That's a very good question. and you're right, you will be exposed. Even if you try to remove all plastics in your life, you will still be exposed because microplastics were found in water, in air, everywhere basically, in clouds.

10:08So it's traveling as well. But when we're talking about the biggest sources of microplastics, if we take as a whole, there are three sources of microplastics, three biggest sources of microplastics in the environment, for example. it's the clothing uh so all the synthetic clothing because we produce a lot of clothing and most of it like around 70 percent of all clothing is made from plastic based materials second is um tires um tires nowadays are also made with rubber which is plastic and it's also releasing a lot of microplastics into our environment and then the third one is packaging because basically a lot of packaging is produced and almost all of it is plastic.

10:57When we talk about our daily life, it would be all the plastic that you use in kitchen or for example, if you get takeaway food in takeaway containers, most of them, almost all of them are lined with plastic inside. Even if they look like carton or paper, they will probably have a thin plastic layer inside rule of thumb is when you have plastic plus heat it will equal to a lot of microplastic because heat makes plastic degrade faster and release a lot of microplastics so if you have a paper cup which is also lined with plastic inside even though the name is paper again you put hot water there hot coffee hot tea it will release a lot of microplastic tea bags if they are made from plastic, because a lot of tea bags are also made out of plastic.

11:48You put hot water there, again, billions of microplastic and nanoplastics. Or for example, Teflon pans, PTFE is also a type of plastic. And it also releases microplastics when you use it. And yeah, you usually put a pan on a stove and you heat it, right? So it will release a lot of microplastics as well. So anything that deals, any plastic that deals with heat will have a lot, a lot of microplastics.

12:13Dr Karan: So actually, you know, the last couple of weeks, there's been a huge heat wave across UK and most of Europe as well. So by that token, it's probably not the best idea to leave a bottle of plastic water, like a plastic water bottle in the heat, right? Yeah, yeah, that's true. If you leave your plastic bottle in your car or anywhere, it will definitely get heated and will release a lot of microplastics again. Now, everyone is worried about microplastics, but does the harm come from the actual plastic particles themselves? Or as you mentioned, is it the chemical additives that are intertwined with the microplastics that they carry, you know, some additives, or is it the absorbed pollutants that they carry from the environment?

12:59Dr Karan: I mean, are there any studies which differentiate the effects from the actual plastic to the contaminants? Because playing devil's advocate, plastic should be a chemically inert structure. So it shouldn't technically have any influence on the body. So what is it, do you think? I would say both of it is true. But for the chemicals that are on top of it, like from the additives, it definitely will have a chemical impact on you. But when you say it also can have some impact on you physically because not all of microplastics, they're not just round and smooth, you know. A lot of them, they will have sharp edges that potentially can create like very, very small cuts, like micro cuts or even nano cuts.

13:53For example, there's one research that says when microplastics, they go into your body, your body will see that something foreign And because of that, your immune system will try to target it. And then they saw that when you have microplastics in your body, then you will have inflammation because of this immune response, which is also not good to have your immune system triggered all the time. Right. And also because you are also exposed to microplastics all the time. So I would say both of it is true. Like they're both type of effects there.

14:27Dr Karan: I want to talk about something that's quite posthum to me and about some medical conditions that I suffered from. I used to have high cholesterol and fatty liver disease, and that primarily stemmed from a severe lack of fiber in my diet. And on my quest for finding the perfect fiber supplement over the last few years that could help me add more fiber into my diet, I couldn't find one. That ticked all the boxes that I wanted and the high bar that I set for myself. So I built Loam Science. What I'm most proud of is not the product. I know that's great, but it's the fact that we've run two clinical trials on it, two randomized controlled trials, which is far more than the vast majority of supplements on the market will ever do.

15:02Dr Karan: And we've got even more coming because I'm a doctor first and foremost and a scientist. And I wanted to build something that I could actually stand behind with data and not just rely on good branding. So if you want to understand what's inside Loam Science and why, the science is all on the website and the link is in the show notes. So from the actual plastic itself, it may be a combination of activation of the immune system, just because it's like a foreign particle and the immune system clusters around it trying to attack it and also the actual physical abrasion of the microplastics maybe causing these micro abrasions and cuts to the intestinal lining or other cells in the body which also triggers inflammation and you know may cause some harm as well when microplastics enter the body what do we think actually happens to them beyond a potential physical injury to the body or they get accumulated in the body and you know cause some harm are we expecting it to most of the time just pass through because it's obviously not going to be digested by the body or do we expect it to accumulate or is there any mechanism at all where they can actually break down into nanoplastics and then potentially cause more harm?

16:16So there are several factors that affect it. First is the way you get exposed to microplastics because you're not only eating, but you're also inhaling it. Right now, we can see that there are a lot of microplastics in our air. And there was one interesting research done in Australia, and they gathered all the dust and already a third, more than a third of all dust, like 39 % of it is already microplastics. Yeah, exactly. And you inhale all of it. And some of it, of course, will get out. But some of them, especially if they're very, very small, like nanoscale, they will be accumulated in your lungs.

16:58And it's also not good as it triggers from something, like some researchers saw some effects. And it can be something quite small, like just some physical irritation, like physical irritation in your lungs to something even more like some respiratory diseases like asthma or even something worse like cancer, like lung cancer, especially because of all the chemicals that are on top of the microplastics. When we talk about ingesting it, which is also the way we expose to microplastics, our body is capable of removing it with excreting it from our body, which is a good sign. This is also one of the bright sides I tell to people because a lot of people, they just get very depressed.

17:54But I always tell them like our body is capable of removing them. There was one research that was done. It was done on fish. We're not fish, but still. They put fish into the clean water that was cleaned for microplastics. And in just a couple of months or weeks, their bodies were capable of removing 70 % of all microplastics inside that were accumulated there. So our bodies are definitely capable of removing. It's just we need to reduce the amount we're exposed to. And because we're exposed to huge amounts of microplastics, usually, especially now with all the modernization and all the single use plastic that we use, we're exposed to a huge amount of microplastics.

18:38And because of that, some of it still stays in our guts. Some researchers say that it's possible that our guts are sucking microplastics into our blood. And that's how it gets into our blood. Some researchers see that there's also effect of microplastics collecting inside of our arteries, also causing some problems there. There was one very interesting research done, and it was published in a scientific journal, the New England Journal of Medicine. And they wanted to study the patients who had an operation to remove artery plaques. and in two years they checked them again and those people who had concentration of microplastic and higher concentration on microplastics in their uh artery plaques had a higher risk of auto attacks and stroke yeah yeah exactly um it's still a bit of it's not exactly close but it's like correlation that they saw but i think it's something that we can say preliminary it's like a preliminary result.

19:53Dr Karan: We obviously know that microplastics can get everywhere in the body and I've always been really fascinated as to what the potential impact of microplastics and nanoplastics could be on the gut specifically as we know the gut barrier as you mentioned is so sensitive it's thin there's not you know essentially one cell layer separating the outside world from our bloodstream. So there's a potentially easy pathway for microplastics to get into our bloodstream if it can bypass the gut barrier. But also something that lives on the gut barrier is the microbiome, all our gut bacteria. And they obviously have a different set of enzymes to what we humans have.

20:35Dr Karan: So how the gut bacteria interact with microplastics, probably negatively is interesting because if they are killed off by microplastics or they're influenced negatively by microplastics and then produce inflammatory compounds as a result that could also worsen our health and could be that link between explaining why there's a greater you know risk of all of these health problems with higher levels or higher burdens of microplastics, right? The gut microbiome may be one of those links. That's definitely interesting, but I didn't read anything about it, to be honest. It's not a lot of research about that.

21:17Yeah. And I would say in general, there's a scarcity of research in human health. The majority of all research papers are done mostly on environment or it's done on animals, but not on humans.

21:32Dr Karan: You obviously mentioned the huge environmental impact microplastics are having. How do you think that over the coming decades, microplastics, how are they going to shape our planet? There was one interesting notion that I read about. It's not exactly about microplastics, but I think it can be extended to that. It's that a lot of plastic, they either melt into rocks or something like this. So a lot of environmental parts are like our nature is, you know, melting with plastic because already there's so many plastic around us in our environment. So our environment, our nature is trying to adapt to that, which is fascinating, which is very, very sad, but also fascinating.

22:17And we don't know how exactly it's going to affect. I would say it's probably negative, but we'll see. Another interesting research that I read, it was about tardigrades and they were found to be one of the only organisms that don't have any microplastics inside because of the way they feed and also because they are very small. But what was very interesting in that research, they called tardigrades as hitchhikers because they use plastic as a means of a transport. You know, they go into these plastics and plastics, They travel around the world because they're very lightweight, but at the same time, they don't degrade that fast.

23:02And they were also hypothesizing what could it mean for our ecosystems because tardigrades, they are quite specific to some locations. And with microplastics, they have an ability to travel around the world, which is maybe good for tardigrades, but can be quite devastating for us. And this is just one thing that we found out about. There could be also other interesting things that are happening because of plastic and microplastics that we don't know yet about.

23:34Dr Karan: I mean, there's some pretty interesting, again, very preliminary research coming out about certain genetically engineered enzymes which could be used to break down microplastics. I know there was a recent bit of research that came out looking at certain probiotic strains in kimchi which can actually break down microplastics. So I wonder whether there's some evolving environmental tech that could be used at scale to actually break down microplastic using some of these bacteria in the environment that have evolved genes to be able to digest these forever chemicals. I'm not sure about genes, but what you say about probiotics is true.

24:18I think in that research that I read about, they were mainly focusing on probiotics helping our guts to detoxify microplastics. Not exactly removing microplastics from your body, but at least neutralize the chemicals that are on top of microplastics. that's for sure and that's one of the yeah advice i give to people who are scared of microplastics is to try to um yeah include more probiotics like kimchi sauerkraut into their diets that's true when we talk about different texts to remove microplastics i know that there are some different types of mushrooms that can digest or break down microplastics um also there are different bacteria, that's true, different insects and worms, I would say it's still very preliminary, but could have a good potential for us.

25:17But it's definitely not the solution, in my opinion. The solution is, of course, to reduce plastic use and plastic production, because you can try and break down all the microplastics you want. But if you increase every year your plastic production, I don't know if that's very feasible, you know.

25:36Dr Karan: Quick one before we continue, and something I've been genuinely nerding out on in my chief of science role at Throne Science is poop and pee. You see, most of us are completely blind to what's happening in our guts and urinary health day to day. We often wait until something is wrong. But your body's actually constantly churning out data in your urine, in your bowel habits, in those patterns that most people never track. I'm proud to say that at Throne Science, we're building technology that captures exactly that. Passive, consistent biomarker monitoring of your gut health, your hydration status, your prostate health markers, without you even having to think about it.

26:11Dr Karan: From a clinical standpoint, the shift from reactive to continuous monitoring is really important because that is where the early signal detection happens and that's when you can change your habits and hopefully outcomes as well. I've been deeply involved from the science side because I think the research here is serious and with rising rates of colon cancer, poop talk is no laughing matter. So if you're curious about what that data could tell you, the links in the show notes. Do you think there are any particular populations or environments that are particularly vulnerable or exposed to microplastics compared to others?

26:44Dr Karan: Because, you know, clearly the Western world, I'm thinking about Europe, the US, North America, are going to have a higher microplastic burden than other places like Asia or Africa potentially. but do you think there are certain niches around the world and sub-environments which are just a bit more precious that could be you know kind of destroyed slowly and insidiously by microplastic increase? I'm not sure but I would say that the developing countries are definitely more vulnerable to plastic because first a lot of European countries and the US I think they are exporting their waste to developing countries to some countries in Africa and Asia which is crazy notion for me but I know that in Germany they are trying to make it illegal to export this but it's still done.

27:45It's a living practice to export. And most of the waste is definitely plastic. So you can see, for example, in Kenya or in Ghana, if I'm not mistaken, there's a huge, huge waste of clothing. If you try and Google like clothing dump or something like that in Ghana, you will see, and it's the size of a city, I think, if not even more. And most of it is definitely plastic. So it will stay there for so many years, for decades, if not for centuries. Definitely these developing countries, they're more vulnerable to the plastic waste and to the problems of microplastics. Also because they don't have resources.

28:35A lot of them, they don't have knowledge about microplastics because, yeah, we're definitely talking about European countries and America or other English speaking countries. They hear about microplastics all the time, right? But if you go into other countries, for example, I'm in Kazakhstan. When I talk to people and say what I'm doing, they don't know what is microplastics even. The plastic that they mention is just like plastic bottles and plastic bags, but they're definitely like paper cups. A lot of people here in Kazakhstan, they don't know that paper cups are actually lined with plastic inside.

29:10This is something that we discuss a lot in European countries, right? But this is something definitely not known in developing countries.

29:18Dr Karan: What do the current regulations globally say about microplastics? And, you know, it seems that they've probably not been updated enough or there's not enough strict regulation to stop large conglomerates pumping out single use packaging and being the culprit of driving a lot of this microplastic excretion into the environment. because obviously the average person consumes microplastics, buys plastic bottles, plastic bags, plastic wrapping, sure. But ultimately the companies producing these things should burden more of that blame and responsibility because if I didn't have access to any plastics, I wouldn't go out of my way to buy it.

30:02Dr Karan: So where is that regulation layer? I agree. And that's one of my favorite topics because there's not a lot of regulations. And I would tell you an interesting story about how I started my microplastic research. It was here in Kazakhstan. My first research was done in wastewater treatment plant. We just wanted to see how much microplastics is removed during the treatment process. And we had the number in the end. We saw that the plant is quite efficient in removing microplastics. It was like 90 % of all microplastics was removed. in the end we have this number which was also quite big I would say it still was even with all the treatment it still was 1 billion microplastic particles per day that was discharged directly into the river and I have this number but I cannot say for sure if it's a high number or a low number I need something to compare it with right so I'm trying to see if there are any regulations, limits, or anything like this here in my country, in Kazakhstan, I didn't see anything.

31:09I was like, okay, it's a developing countries. We're still on our way to get some environmental laws and stuff. And I was like, okay, let's check European standards. Let's check what they do in the US, in Canada, and all the developed countries where they do care about the environment. And I literally found nothing. So there's not a single country that has a limit on how many microplastics can be discharged into the rivers directly. There's not a single country that even monitors that, not just puts a limit, but that doesn't even monitor that. Because I also worked then in Spain, in Germany with wastewater treatment plants, nothing, nada.

31:52So this is how it is right now. There are some regulations here and there about like using microplastics in personal care products because, yeah, microplastics can be used as ingredients in personal care products. In some countries, they do try limit that. I think in the U.S., there's Microbeat Free Waters Act or law. And yeah, they're trying to remove micro, using microbeats in personal care products. apart from that there is there is no no regulations a lot of this is obviously out of our control

32:34Dr Karan: what happens on the government level but there are obviously things that we can do practical things and actionable things that the everyday person can do to both reduce the impact that they have on the environment when it comes to microplastics but also on our own health as well take me through what you would advise me to do from you know morning to evening if i just wanted to do things every single day, eating, drinking, and just living life where I could reduce my microplastic burden to my own health and the environment? Yeah. First thing is of course, reducing your plastic use, especially in the kitchen, whatever is touching your hot food or like anything heat related, you should try and avoid plastic there.

33:17And best case scenario, you also avoid silicone because silicone is a type of plastic. That's the first thing I usually advise. Second is clothing. Yeah, if you can buy only natural fabrics from now on, this is something I would recommend as well. Another thing is vacuuming more. As I said, a lot of dust right now is microplastics. So vacuuming, opening your windows is a good way to also try and reduce the concentration of microplastics in your air in your home and as we already mentioned is try to um yeah include probiotics reach food like yogurt kimchi and so on in your diet also a good way to try and detoxify microplastics in your body keep talking about microplastic it's very important when we talk about environmental problems if you see the petition sign it if you see anything going on politically, you definitely should take action in that matter as well, because that's very important.

34:23And that's one of the big impact we can make.

34:26Dr Karan: Yeah, I think, you know, the landscape is going to continue to change and hopefully the regulation changes as well. And thanks to advocacy from, you know, the likes of yourself and experts like yourself talking about it on social media and really, you know, championing it. Hopefully this is going to have ripples of impact that go beyond just what the average person can do and you know we start seeing some tighter regulations from the top down because i think ultimately that's what's needed so dana thank you so much thank you so much for having me and i'll see you next week you microplastic ridden microbiome bags