29/10/2018
"Austrian scientists monitored and tested stool samples from eight study participants from different countries and all of them tested positive for at least one form of microplastic, with the nine different types discovered ranging in size from 50 to 500 micrometers.
Microplastics -- tiny plastic particles less than 5 millimeters in size -- are usually worn down from larger plastics polluting the oceans, such as bottles and bags"
"The eight participants came from across the globe: Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, the UK and Austria. They kept diaries of their food intake for a week before having their stools tested.
The diaries showed that all eight had been exposed to plastic-wrapped foods, while six had eaten seafood. On average, 750 milliliters of water was drunk from plastic water bottles by the participants, of whom none were vegetarians"
"We know that microplastics are endemic in the environment, in consumer products we all use, and in many different species of animals that we consume directly or indirectly, so it would be more surprising if they had not detected microplastics in human stools," said Peter Jenkinson, managing director at environmental consulting firm CEHTRA.
"There isn't evidence of microplastics in the body, but that they have been in the body and travelled through, and as such this does not show any evidence of accumulation," added Stephanie Wright, a research fellow at King's College London"
"This is very much a preliminary study," said Alistair Boxall, professor in environmental science at the University of York in England, who called for more work to be done to understand where ingested microplastics originate.
"We don't have exact evidence from where this is coming from -- it could be that most of these materials may be coming from house dust and the use of plastic containers and packaging or, for example, nylon fibers from our tumble dryer -- and this could potentially outweigh the environmental routes of exposure," he noted.
Boxall added that "to truly understand the sources of exposure we need much more thorough studies where we monitor closely people's day-to-day activities and the media they are exposed to."
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/23/health/microplastics-human-stool-pollution-intl/index.html
Microplastics have been found in human stools for the first time in a multi-country study, suggesting they may be in our food chain. But the study was small and more research is needed to prove the plastics came from people's diets, experts warn.