MICROPLASTICS have already been found in birds and fish and whales, and now they have been discovered in humans. Philipp Schwabl, a gastroenterologist at the Medical University of Vienna presented his findings at a United European Gastroenterology Conference in Vienna last month.
The study involved three men and five women, aged 33 to 65, from seven different European countries and Japan. Participants kept a food diary for a week and then provided a stool sample for testing. All stool samples tested positive for plastic. The human stool experiment, Schwabl says he hopes his findings will hasten research into the effects of microplastics on human health.
The Environmental Agency in Austria tested the stool samples for 10 different types of plastic. They found nine of them, most commonly PET and polypropylene (PP), a common component of plastic food wrappers and synthetic clothes.
Richard Thompson, a marine scientist at the University of Plymouth in U.K. and four other scientists published a study earlier this year that compared potential exposure from airborne plastic fibers that fall onto food during meal preparation to the amounts of microplastics ingested by edible mussels in Scotland. The group found that the risk of plastic consumption to humans was greater from exposure to airborne fibers than from eating the mussels. That raises questions, Thompson says, about the sources of plastic found in the stool study.
He says the PET could be coming from plastic bottles and food packaging, but it is also possible that it is coming from carpets or curtains or clothing and just falling onto the plate. “If we can understand what the pathway is, it helps understand a little bit about the solution.” But even knowing the pathway, Thompson adds, “That doesn’t tell me anything about harm.”
Schwabl himself cautions against drawing too many conclusions from an eight-person sample.