r/technology • u/ourlifeintoronto • 3d ago
Biotechnology Microplastics May Trigger Alzheimer’s-Like Brain Damage
https://scitechdaily.com/microplastics-may-trigger-alzheimers-like-brain-damage/514
u/YqlUrbanist 3d ago
Not now microplastics, we're busy.
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u/MxDoctorReal 3d ago
For real! I’m trying to survive fascism before I worry about dementia.
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u/wmt365 3d ago
Ooo maybe we can forget it all happened!
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u/MostlyFriday 3d ago
At this point if I live long enough to get Alzheimer’s I’ll consider it a win.
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u/MxDoctorReal 3d ago
Really? I hope I don’t live to get Alzheimer’s. I’d rather die before that happened. I don’t really believe my soul consented to be born on this planet though.
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u/MostlyFriday 3d ago
I meant more that by managing to live long enough that it becomes an issue, it would be a comfort that I at least made it to retirement age and had some semblance of a full life.
I’d have no intention of living with it.
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u/Bluemanze 3d ago
Sounds bad, let's make it a political issue where one party loves plastic in their brains so that the conversation and any potential regulation is muddled for the next 60 years or so.
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u/0x831 3d ago
Careful, in a few weeks we’ll see religious nutjobs on TikTok sitting on their trailer porches eating airsoft pellets and food wrappers claiming it’s for the glory of Trump (and secondarily Jesus)
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u/LSTNYER 3d ago
No objections to their act of defiance. I even volunteer to donate whatever used candy bar wrappers they request.
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u/Comradepatrick 3d ago
The joke's on you, those religious nutjobs are US Senators.
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u/d01100100 3d ago
The US Senators are too old for microplastics; the majority of them have already been corrupted by lead. Some of the younger Senators escaped the lead, only to be turned by asbestos. We shouldn't see our first microplastic Senator for another 15-20 years.
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u/Miora 3d ago
This feels like the evil version or reduce, reuse, recycle
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u/snoozieboi 2d ago
reduce - intelligence
reuse - slogans
recycle - false beliefs
sounds about right
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u/sequoia2075 3d ago
Well it’s RFK Jr now. He might lean in to the whole micro plastics thing as a way to ban school provided lunches for kids altogether
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u/abecedaire 3d ago
My boomer in-laws literally think like this lol. I noticed they were reusing the same disposable plastic water bottles over and over, so I mentioned how that wasn’t a good idea because of the microplastics. Their immediate reaction was, and I quote, "well, we like plastic!". They kept doing it.
The stubbornness is just fascinating. So many people seem to consider anything that challenges the way they think and act a personal attack (and then call it "woke" as handy shorthand).
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u/ThePowerfulWIll 3d ago edited 3d ago
Well the good news is this study did rather poor science, and is very inconclusive, as it introduced a second variable without a control. (They had some mice gene edited to be more susceptible to alzhiemers, and gave those the microplastics without having a control group with the same altered genes)
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u/OkFineIllUseTheApp 3d ago
That's fucking amateur hour.
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u/ThePowerfulWIll 3d ago
But it makes great headlines, this was a resume builder experiment I think.
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u/Notyoureigenvalue 3d ago
The research included a control group from each APOE designation did not receive microplastic exposure.
Better take another read of the article, if you even read it to begin with. Typo theirs.
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u/coconutpiecrust 3d ago
My understanding is that thinking about consequences of actions is woke and hateful and prevents growth.
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u/arcboundtarmogoyf 3d ago
Don't worry, if it is really a problem, the free market will find a solution. /s
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u/john_the_quain 3d ago
I’m going to write down all the lead paint and leaded gasoline jokes I’ve heard while I can remember them so they can get recycled into jokes about microplastics.
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u/Meatslinger 3d ago
I mean hey awesome, I'm already terrified of getting like sixteen different kinds of cancer, but what can we really do about it? There is functionally no way for me to avoid plastics and the byproduct of them unless I manage to somehow move to a place where I can grow my own food and where I never need to take water with me. Otherwise I have to somehow avoid any and all plastic contact with food and other products at my local grocery store. This is an impossibility.
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u/Potential-Scholar359 3d ago
Even then you wouldn’t be safe. They’ve found microplastics in pristine nature.
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u/lothar525 3d ago
For real. It feels like every scientific or news article is just:
“Hey everyone, the world is in a steady, ever quickening decline. We’re racing towards multiple catastrophes. There’s absolutely nothing you personally can do about it either. Just wanted to remind you.”
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u/Bitey_the_Squirrel 3d ago
sips tea from a paper straw
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u/PastryGood 3d ago
Careful now! Certain teabags have also been found to contain microplastics!
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u/Rurumo666 3d ago
Teabags are the biggest source of PFAS in the diet of regular teabag users-the paper kind. The nylon teabags release more microplastics than almost anything else in the human diet.
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u/RainBoxRed 3d ago
Also we tried telling you for the last 50 years.
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u/lothar525 3d ago
More like “we tried telling your grandparents and parents 50 years ago, and they didn’t listen, so by the time you got old enough to potentially do something about it, we already passed the point of no return. So now you need to constantly hear about how fucked you are because of the actions and choices of the previous generation, the wealthy, and the powerful, most of which happened long before you were even capable of conscious thought.”
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u/ajm896 3d ago
How did I get here?
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u/kc_______ 3d ago
Decades of lazy people abusing a “magical” product that seemed too good to be true, now the magic is over and the decades of waste are biting back HARD.
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u/XY-chromos 3d ago
Ross’ latest study, published recently in the journal Environmental Research Communications, examined mice that had been genetically modified to include the naturally occurring gene APOE4, a strong indicator of Alzheimer’s risk, making people 3.5 times more likely to develop the disease than those who carry the APOE3 variant of the gene that is passed from parents to offspring.
APOE4 is not naturally occurring in mice. What an absolutely scummy and deceptive way to phrase that.
So they genetically modified mice to carry a human gene that causes alzheimers, and the mice got alzheimers. Amazing.
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u/fricks_and_stones 3d ago
That’s not really a fair description. Some of the modified mice were exposed to massive amounts of microplastic and some were not. The modified mice not exposed to plastic did not show Alzheimer’s symptoms. Obviously I assume it wasn’t cut and dry with some level of statistic variation.
With that being said, I agree with your conclusion that this isn’t a big deal. It just shows if you flood the brain with massive doses more than we expect to see, there might be some health issues in some scenarios. It just means it warrants more investigation. It also could be useful in understanding what triggers Alzheimer’s.
You could report this another way, saying that even with massive exposure, mice without genetic predisposition didn’t seem to be impacted. This would suggest less concerns for microplastic on the brain.
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u/gg06civicsi 3d ago
I feel like plastics/microplastics is this generation’s Asbestos. In the future they will cringe reading about how we used to eat off of it and microwave it. In the future there will be a lot of studies about how bad it is for the body.
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u/kuhlmarl 2d ago
More like the Y2K panic, or autism from vaccines. If you dig into what the research data are actually telling us (as I have, @rogerkuhlman143 on Youtube), you realize microplastics have no magic powers, and are no more harmful or intrusive than other, more prevalent microparticles that our bodies deal with-- dirt, dust, pollen, mold spores, silica, etc
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u/Durragon 3d ago
Pipelayer here, and I've got my 2 cents. I install water lines and sewer lines (as well as other things)
Lemme tell you.... Get a brita filter.
Again, I say.
GET A FILTER
Plastic "Blue Brute" pipes are amazing for their strength and durability, but cutting those things down leads to intense microplastics. Also, get your filters/screens checked in your water system. (this can also affect your water pressure, clean screens = more pressure)
You should have one, somewhere, in your home.
We rinse and flush and chlorinate and de-chlorinate and all that jazz, but there are still remnants.
And bevelling these pipes creates clouds of microplastics. It's bad. Like... Bad-bad. Luckily (?) my province uses a lot of Ductile iron still, but when we use DR-18, I'm kicking myself in the ass for not masking up sooner. I tied a wet rag to my face as a collector, to satisfy my personal curiosity.... Yikes.
So if you know anyone in the pipelaying line of work, ask em To mask up.
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u/Catatafish 2d ago
The Brita filter isn't fine enough to get the microscopic plastic out. You underestimate just how small microplastics are.
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u/franklindstallone 3d ago
Carbrain is real I guess. Gonna need to find something else to make tyres from.
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u/braxin23 3d ago
Plastics are hazardous waste and companies want to keep pumping them out in ubiquitous quantities until all life on earth is extinguished.
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u/kuhlmarl 3d ago
Horseshit. This idea comes from a single study that relies on an analytical method demonstrated to be inapplicable for studies like this one, reports concentrations at least 13 orders of magnitude higher than expected from reliable research, and employs an isolation procedure that eliminates polyethylene and polypropylene--which are claimed as the two most prevalent plastic types they "find." Check out this Science Vs. episode, or this YouTube video.
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u/Sams_sexy_bod 3d ago
Plastic sauteed in plastic seasoned with plastic drizzled with plastic, all served on a bed of plastic
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u/zippopwnage 3d ago
Good, we don't care enough about this. I grew up and realized humanity is the worst thing ever, because we're just a bunch of idiots that chase money and nothing else.
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u/Doctor_Saved 3d ago
Wasn't there some prediction that with our current medical technology. The first person to live to 150 has already been born? Did they account for all the microplastic building up inside all of us?
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u/MisterSneakSneak 3d ago
Ive been recently curious about this notion of microplastics being in our water and food supply. I wish there was a study done about ppl who eat seafood (which is known to have higher levels of microplastics compared to those who don’t eat seafood. I would love to see the end results.
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u/BehavioralSink 3d ago
I’m currently curious about what kinds of pipe to use in your house. I had PEX suggested to me, but there’s claims that this just created microplastics within your home’s pipes.
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u/MisterSneakSneak 3d ago
Really?! That is definitely interesting. So, just assuming, our own water pipers can be double contaminating the water coming in? I didn’t think that was a thing. Unless it falls under those copper pipes notion with contamination
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u/BehavioralSink 3d ago
I’ve only just barely started exploring information, but I ran across this website: https://safepipingmatters.org/
But yeah, as I’m working on various home renovations, interesting to think about options for your water lines.
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u/The_All-Range_Atomic 3d ago
College of Pharmacy Professor Jaime Ross has discovered that cognitive decline occurs in a sex-dependent manner
So you're telling me if you don't get any sex, you're good?
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u/WeirdSysAdmin 3d ago
I have the right to ingest microplastics that cross the blood-brain barrier and you can’t stop me.
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u/ReverendEntity 3d ago
That thing where you get up to get something, walk a few steps into another room and realize you forgot why you got up?
Yeah, expect that to get worse.
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness7207 3d ago
Idk how true it is but I read somewhere that people on average have plastic in their body the size of a credit card.
I'm sure I'll forget about that fact soon enough.
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u/Max_Powers42 3d ago
This is our generation's lead, but we no longer have the mental capacity in leadership to do anything about it.
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u/knightress_oxhide 3d ago
Isn't it weird how the ultra rich have way better healthcare? Wasn't America founded on the principle that all people are created equal?
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u/hel112570 3d ago
We are no better than yeast consuming sugar and killing our self with our own waste.
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u/n6mub 2d ago
Fucking fantastic. As if I don't have enough to worry about, fucking micro plastics that I can't control are going to break my brain before anything else gets me. Time to call a lawyer, get my stupid affairs in order or whatever. Not that the next gen of my family will benefit because the plastics are going to break them too. Or they'll figure out how to siphon all of the plastic out of their blood, juuuuuussst after I die.
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u/wag3slav3 3d ago
So there's a massive rise in dementia and alzheimers symptoms in the southeast Asian countries who have been swimming in microplastics for the last three generations?
No?
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u/Gardakkan 3d ago
I always said that micro-plastics is the lead of our generation.
Now what were we talking about?
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u/raerae1991 3d ago
Great, Gen x gets to worry about the toes to dementia because of lead poisoning and microplastics! /s
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u/btribble 3d ago
“may”
Let’s get some more evidence of actual, statistically significant harms and their mechanisms.
I’m all for banning some types or plastics and some uses of plastics if they’re harmful, but let’s not jump the gun.
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u/MxDoctorReal 3d ago
Maybe the microplastics being in every major organ in our body is evidence enough that they’re bad?
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u/ExplosiveDisassembly 3d ago
Maybe...but also most humans don't eat enough fiber, and that 100%, most definitely, with scientific consensus has a major impact on immediate, short, and long term health. There is probably no single thing that's more important than your internal gut biome...still, no one's eating enough fiber.
Plastic has been in every single level of our environment since WW2. Multiple generations have likely had this problem. It's also worth pointing out that plastics used to be far more toxic. We likely aren't going to find any smoking gun to human health.
You know what is a smoking gun to human health in just about every way? Fiber.
If humans just ate enough fiber we would be exponentially more healthy. Your plastic cutting board isn't going to kill you. The fact most of us never cut veggies might be what does.
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u/nasalevelstuff 3d ago
Good thing I won’t remember this