The perils of plastics 

Reports have emerged suggesting that plastic particles are making their way into our bodies, clogging arteries that may be leading to cardiovascular events. Is this something that people should be concerned about? 

What are plastics? They are a polymeric material with many desirable properties that have made their use ubiquitous. They are inexpensive to produce and can be molded into numerous shapes. They have been around for well over a century, with World War II accelerating their uses and applications. Recall that plastics were described with having a “great future” in the movie “The Graduate.” 

A big downside of some plastics is that they do not biodegrade; once they are discarded into landfills, they remain intact in perpetuity. This has fueled an industry around plastic recycling, either by reusing items or reprocessing them into other consumer or industrial products.  

Concerns about the impact of plastics on people have been around since the 1960s. This has prompted numerous studies and reports discussing how exposure to plastics may negatively influence human health.  

Most recently, the impact of plastics on cardiovascular disease has been in the public eye, after a study reported that small plastic particles can travel through a person’s circulatory system, lodging and restricting flow in certain blood vessels that can lead to cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes.  

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, extracted data from several hundred patients who underwent a procedure to remove plaque from their carotid arteries (which send blood to the head and neck, including the brain). Their finding was that many of these patients (over one-half) had a buildup of plastics in this artery.  

So what are the primary sources of plastics in our diets? None of us purposefully consume plastics into our digestive system; yet many of the foods that we eat are packaged in plastics, sometimes invisible to us. 

Canned foods are a good example of such hidden plastics. Many canned food linings in the past have been made with bispenol A (or BPA). This number has dropped significantly, with non-BPA materials now being used. Whether such materials end up depositing plastics in our blood streams with negative consequences remains to be seen. 

Water consumed from plastic bottles has been the standard for over 20 years. In 2010, over 42 billion plastic bottles of water were used by Americans. The majority of these bottles never get reused or recycled. 

With so much water being consumed out of plastic bottles, are some plastic particles seeping into our bodies and arteries, creating health problems that have yet to even be identified, or can be imagined? 

It will be very difficult to match the cause and effect associated with plastics. Evidence of plastic particle deposits in arteries are insightful, yet do not provide an explanation of the source of such plastics in our diets and environment. 

What it does point out is that plastics may pose a risk that is far greater than previously thought. For example, there are reports of increases in certain types of cancers (breast, prostate, colorectal and cervical) amongst younger people (those under 50). This has been a change that needs an explanation. Will plastics or some other environmental factors emerge as contributing to such a rise? 

There is presently no data available to reveal causality for plastic build ups in carotid arteries. All that is available is observational information, which may be informative but is often difficult to pin down to a specific explanation. 

A complex world involves many moving parts. Human health is something that we all value, for no other reason than it affects us personally. Diet, exercise and lifestyle crazes come and go as we each search for an easy pathway to live longer and stay healthy. The challenge is sticking with such changes in our lives. 

If plastics are indeed a culprit for poor health, changing how we use them will be nontrivial, time-intensive and costly. Plastics are easy, quick and inexpensive, which is why their use has become so ubiquitous. Many of us will be unwilling to toss them aside. 

Yet it is worthwhile to keep an eye on how much of our foods and liquids are plastic-packaged and make small changes to reduce our plastic “food consumption” exposure. It may not only help the environment, with less landfill waste, but may also prove in time to improve our health, one plastic particle at a time. 

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A data scientist, he applies his expertise in data-driven risk-based decision-making to evaluate and inform public policy.