Although this is a scary number, it is worth considering this comes from one hospital and 10 patients. It is a strong hint to pursue research in this area but I wouldn’t call it a proof yet
It’s also worth noting that microplastics appear in basically all body tissue, including the brain, when looking at samples from cadavers in recent years. I don’t remember the name offhand but one study found enough microplastics in the average brain to make a plastic spoon.
So this might be more of a correlative thing, hopefully. Because the world ain’t stopping with plastic everything
one study found enough microplastics in the average brain to make a plastic spoon
What the fuck does this mean for Spoon Theory‽
This needs to be the top comment, the headline is extremely misleading
I don’t know if it is misleading or simply a lack of scientific literacy from the reporter. I can see how the hospital communicated to news outlets to push their findings to get money, and the reporter saw the strong 90% and rolled with it because he doesn’t know better. Or at least I prefer to think this is the reasoning instead of malicious intent.
If a reporter is reporting on science, scientific literacy is literally their job. Excuses like this allow reports like lions main cures dementia, or x new food is proven to make you live longer. It is explicitly the job of a reporter to know the subject they are reporting on.
I would tend to agree with you, but I worked a few years as a reporter. The pressure to shit articles as fast as possible, the time constraint and the constant fear of loosing your job sadly does not allow proper reporting. This has a deep impact on society and nobody gives a shit.
Dash is all you need.
And 100% contain dihydrogen monoxide.
Doesn’t everything everywhere contain microplastics? Brains, the rain, livers, ovaries, the external ovaries that guys have, blood, bone marrow.
I’m pretty sure that 90% of all biomass in general contains microplastics these days.
Thanks boomers!
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In case you’re not joking, Baby Boomers = Boomers. Their parents were from the Silent Generation or the Greatest Generation. Baby Boomer refers to people born in the “baby boom” caused by the prosperity and optimism following WWII, and these days is often shortened to just Boomer.
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You realize that the boomers ARE the baby boomers right? It’s like saying Gen-Z, or Zoomers. Same generation.
You greatly underestimate the pervasiveness of microplastics.
The other 10% contains macroplastic.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/microplastics-human-body-doubt
TL;DR: science currently has no efficient way to actually measure microplastic content with being able to control for outside contaminants
edit: please read the other comments below!
IIRC, there’s a harder, trusted process for measurement. But an easier method that has gained widespread adoption, and that method is what has been called into question.
This is a hit piece, echoes of big oil & tobacco. It’s picking studies that have (debatable) issues, then is casting a wide net that is encouraging doubt of all microplastics in the body studies. They take the time to explain why these can be ignored, but depend on you to go read the counter-counterarguments made by the original researchers of each study yourself.
Rauert says there are absolutely nanoplastics in our bodies, but micro plastics are unlikely due to their size.
It doesn’t do a meta-analysis of all MNP studies and doesn’t disregard bad criticisms or biased voices (Kuhlman). It’s also sensationalised.
Pulled from a chat about this when this was released
i’m not too knowledgeable which is why i didn’t bother to read the counter-counter arguments (case solved, problem in between seat and screen). also i didn’t realize it’s a hit piece, by no means would i like to propagate denialism.
you appear to be way more knowledgeable, do you have more conclusions from that chat? also can you do an eli5 what is meta-analysis?
My wife is the more knowledgeable one, but a meta-analysis is basically when you combine all the data of similar studies on a subject. It can expose studies that are bad within the data set and better assess the efficacy of the techniques used in a study. Compare that to what was done here, which was mostly just cherrypicking and highlighting the issues of a handful of studies.
I encourage you to give a peek at the counter counter-arguments! There is some jargon, but there is decipherable stuff in it (moreso than the original papers imo). One of them says something to the effect of “we had to skip the standard control because the control was in a container that was releasing microplastics” which I would consider reasonable.
I called this a hit piece because the person they quote about it being a “bombshell” works for DOW Chemical.
%90 of human tissues probably contain microplastics. title sounds like baity. Is it significantly less or more than other tissues is the question.
The article states that cancerous areas had ~2.5x more microplastics than the surrounding non-cancerous areas. It could be a chicken and egg/correlation≠causation situation, (is cancer caused by microplastics, or do cancerous cells attract microplastics?) but the article does outline that cancer cells clearly had more microplastics.
It should still be compared to differences in other resources being transported to the tissue, see my answer below. I am not a fan of microplastics, I don’t try to discredit their health effects. It is just that this much information does not help much. I understand that causation would be much harder to prove, but at least one should try to prove for instance that ratio of cancerous to healthy tissue microplastics is much higher than the same ratio other for other stuff that tissues generally transport by blood vessels. This would atleast show that there is an extraordinary relation between the tissue and microplastics in the context of cancer. It could still be causation on the other direction, such as “maybe tissue structure of prostate cancer allows it to absorb microplastics more than other types of resources” but even that would be a useful piece of information.
Potentially, as cancer cells don’t switch off and die the same way, they have a longer lifespan to accumulate microplastics. Especially if the body’s disposal of dead cells actually manages to clear at least some of the microplastics from the body.
Cancerous tumors tend to siphon more resources than healthy cells. It’s not surprising that they’d have a higher concentration of microplastics
correlation doesnt equal causation. CANCER cell in general have higher metabolic energy requirements, so they intake more(pump) in the surrouding environment to fuel thier uncontrolled cell division, so naturally microplastics on the outside of the cell would be pumped into the cell along with nutrients it stealing at higher than normal tissue to fuel its growth.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12505851/ (October, 2025)
Microplastics as emerging carcinogens: from environmental pollutants to oncogenic drivers
ABSTRACT: The widespread environmental pollution of microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) has become a major public health issue, with increasing evidence associating their bioaccumulation with cancer onset. This review offers a thorough examination of the etiological contributions of MPs/NPs in carcinogenesis, clarifying their mechanistic roles in in vitro, in vivo, and patient-derived evidences. Relevant studies were systematically identified and screened following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines to ensure methodological transparency and quality. We highlighted recent discoveries that emphasize the varied accumulation of MPs in several human cancer tissues, including lung, colorectal, gastric, cervical, breast, pancreatic, prostate and penile malignancies. These particles induce harmful biological effects by chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, genotoxicity, disturbance of lipid metabolism, and alteration of the tumor immunological microenvironment. Significantly, MPs/NPs disrupt various oncogenic signaling pathways, particularly NF-κB, PI3K/Akt/mTOR, Wnt/β-catenin, and p53, therefore facilitating tumor initiation, development, and metastasis. In vitro and in vivo studies have corroborated the carcinogenic potential of MPs/NPs, illustrating their capacity to cause cellular transformation, augment metastatic characteristics, and modify drug resistance pathways in cancer cells. Furthermore, the detection of MPs in human biological matrices, including blood, placenta, and tumor tissues, highlights direct human exposure and potential systemic effects. This review emphasizes the mechanistic insights with therapeutic significance, addressing current knowledge gaps in the field. Future research must prioritize biomarker identification, patient-centered investigations, therapeutic targeting, and the formulation of regulatory policies to alleviate the health hazards linked to microplastic exposure. Understanding the intricate relationship between MPs/NPs and cancer biology could facilitate the development of novel cancer prevention and management strategies related to environmental contamination.
Biased review written out of regional universities in India. These places crank out AI slop every week. All implications, no mechanism.
Tbh this comment sounds like biased AI slop. Especially when they detail the mechanisms literally in the abstract.
Everyone take note their Genetic Fallacy.
90% of non-cancerous prostates too.
We are all full of microplastics, but our tumors are too.
All tumours, no exception, contain dihydrogen monoxide.
Notably, tumor tissue contained significantly more plastic. On average, cancerous samples had about 2.5 times the concentration found in healthy prostate tissue (about 40 micrograms of plastic per gram of tissue compared with 16 micrograms per gram).
Sure, though it’s to be expected that everything contains water in the body. To expect microplastics, however, is kind of different – leaving aside their showing a legitimate difference in microplastic quantity between healthy and unhealthy prostates.
Correlation still doesn’t prove causation. Tumors process resources different than surrounding cells. The worst thing about the study is that it chooses to focus on microplastics without distinction when we know certain types of plastics have far higher carcinogenic risk than others, it would have just taken than slight bit more effort to actually make it worthwhile.
Yeah, what if it happens that micro plastics are somehow being trapped in tumors actually removing them from the bloodstream? What if cancer is how we can get the micro plastics out? I’m only half joking here lol. A bleak thought for sure.
Naturally, more studies need to be conducted and microplastics have only been intensively studied beginning this past decade (PFAS being separate and longer). Similar to the carnivore fad diet, odds are exceedingly-high that having microplastics is not good for us but long-term and fully causal studies have not fully identified all mechanistic linkages. Yet I recall tobacco industries rhetorically hiding behind these arguments in a similar manner despite growing concerns from scientists and medical professionals.
I just take issue with the implication of the other user that this is as harmless as ubiquitous and as fearmongering as water. That in itself is absurd.
Microplastics should not be in our fucking bodies. Water should.
It shouldn’t, but as a problem it is no longer preventable, at least for most people not able to be born into a socioeconomic bubble now that it has been identified as a problem. Lumping them altogether into microplastics is like lumping all addictive substances - coffee, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine - into the same category. Sure, you’d be a lot better not being addicted to anything, but some addictions are worse than others, and for different reasons. It also lumps carcinogenic agents under the same smoke screen as, say, biodegradable microplastics which have considerably lower ecotoxicity.
You know, I’ve never understood why there are no warning labels on the bottles of the stuff.
Notably, tumor tissue contained significantly more plastic. On average, cancerous samples had about 2.5 times the concentration found in healthy prostate tissue (about 40 micrograms of plastic per gram of tissue compared with 16 micrograms per gram).
Still, correlation does not imply causation. It might just be that because of the nature of what tumors are, they get stuck with more microplastics. The biggest problem with this study is that there are known carcinogens in some types of plastics over others, and it seems to outright choose to dismiss any attempt at distinction for the sake of the microplastic boogieman.
Or maybe people that have unhealthy lifestyles that generally might include more ultra-processed foods or living conditions more susceptible to microplastics intake. IOW more plastics packaged foods and drinks, living near roadways where tire particles and exhaust both add to poor health and stress, etc.
Yeah, I remember reading that tires are the biggest microplastic contributors. Those are some good points.
Plastic seems to I be a massive problem
So is lab techique that allows microparticle contamination, leading to over-measurement of microplastics.
Post a source if you are going to say things like that
Good thing we just deregulated like everything
Researchers also found that these fragments appeared in greater amounts inside cancerous tumors than in nearby noncancerous prostate tissue.
For those who want to give an opinion based on even a smidge more than just the title.
I am worry about the systematic error treatment of this data, cancer is per se very abnormal in growing parameters…
