Scientists have found “alarming” evidence that microplastics not only get into the human brain, but could also be contributing to the onset of dementia and other neurological diseases.
“Human brains contain approximately a spoon’s worth of microplastics and nanoplastics, with levels three to five times higher in individuals with documented dementia diagnoses,” University of Ottawa researchers said in the science journal Brain Medicine.
The Canada-based researchers’ warning followed “groundbreaking” work by a University of New Mexico-led team in the United States, which found microplastics and nanoplastics to be making a beeline for the brain ahead of other organs.
Concentrations in normal brain samples from deceased people were seven to 30 times greater than the concentrations seen in livers or kidneys, while brain samples from dementia cases show even greater presence of plastic particles, the New Mexico team said in a paper published by the journal Nature Medicine in February (2025).
Other recently-published research has warned of microplastics and nanoplastics getting into the human body through sweat, and of the particles being found in male genitalia, as well as being passed from pregnant woman to unborn child.
“The dramatic increase in brain microplastic concentrations over just eight years, from 2016 to 2024, is particularly alarming,” said Dr Nicholas Fabiano of the University of Ottawa’s Department of Psychiatry.
The surge in warnings about the health threats posed by microplastics and nanoplastics have tracked the rising anger over plastic pollution, vast quantities of which has ended up in lakes, rivers, seas and oceans.
Despite efforts to restrict the use of plastics through measures such as requiring paper straws, European countries and Japan have been accused in turn of shipping plastic waste to South-East Asia, following the imposition of curbs and strict recycling rules at home.
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“This rise [of microplastics in the human body] mirrors the exponential increase we’re seeing in environmental microplastic levels,” said Dr Fabiano. – dpa
