Our Episode

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast
where we discuss science and
science-based tools for everyday
[Music]
life I’m Andrew huberman and I’m a
professor of neurobiology and
Opthalmology at Stanford school of
medicine today we are discussing
microplastics microplastics are an
extremely interesting and important
topic that everyone should know about
and the reason is microplastics are
indeed everywhere they are in the air
they are in beverages we consume they
are lining the inside of Soup cans they
are lining the inside of paper cups made
to hold hot water coffee and tea and
there are a lot of animal data and
indeed some human data showing that
microplastics which consist of particles
of different sizes can be very
detrimental to our health at the same
time it’s important to realize that as
of now we don’t have any causal data
linking microplastics to spefic specific
human diseases that said there’s a lot
of correlative data and today we are
going to review those correlative data
and most importantly we are going to
discuss the various things that we can
each and all do to limit our exposure to
microplastics or at least to facilitate
the removal of microplastics from our
body because as we’ll soon discuss you
have microplastics in essentially every
organ and tissue of your body right now
and you are constantly being bombarded
with microplastics so the challenge for
me and indeed for you as well is to
frame this topic of microplastics
accurately it’s important that we
understand they are out there they are
in us and indeed they can cause serious
issues for our health however we also
need to take agency we need to
understand how we can limit What’s
called the bioaccumulation of
microplastics in our organs and tissues
and I don’t want to be alarmist today’s
episode is not about getting you to be
petrified or about developing some sort
of hypoc assis about microplastics it’s
designed to inform you about what they
are where they exist where they exist in
particularly high amounts and the things
that you can do to limit their impact on
your biology because I think it’s fair
to say that we are not going to rid the
Earth of microplastics they are just too
pervasive now the one caveat is that
there are certain populations of people
in particular people that are pregnant
or people that have young children and
those young children themselves that
should really strive to limit their
exposure to microplastics so by the end
of today’s episode you can be confident
that you’ll understand a lot about what
microplastics are the impact that they
are currently having some of the
potential impact that people are
starting to investigate and ways that
you can limit their negative impact on
your brain and bodily Health before you
begin I’d like to emphasize that this
podcast is separate from my teaching and
research roles at Stanford it is however
part of my desire and effort to bring
zero cost to Consumer information about
science and science related tools to the
General Public in keeping with that
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okay let’s talk about
microplastics what are microplastics
microplastics as the name suggests are
little itty bitty bits of plastic how
itty bitty well microplastics range in
size from one micron which is 1 1,000th
of a millimeter all the way up to 5
millim in diameter okay so anything in
that size range is considered a
microplastic anything smaller than that
so anything smaller than one micron in
diameter 1 1,000th of a millimeter in
diameter is considered a nanoplastic and
indeed there are lots of microplastics
floating around in the air there are
lots of nanoplastics floating around in
the air there’s lots of both of those
things in the ocean there a lot of those
things in food especially packaged food
there are a lot of those things lining
cups there are a lot of those things
in everything that we consume
essentially so what does it mean to have
all these microplastics and nanoplastics
floating around in our environment and
going into our body through fluids and
Foods Etc well there is some serious
concern because these microplastics
potentially can disrupt cellular Health
organ health and could potentially lead
to certain forms of disease we’ll talk
about the ways they could potentially do
that however I want to also emphasize
that your body is incredibly good at
dealing with for foreign Invaders it’s
very good at getting rid of stuff that
isn’t good for it however microplastics
and nanoplastics have been shown to
Lodge within specific tissues and stay
there for long periods of time so you’ll
notice during today’s episode I’m going
to go back and forth between the stuff
that’s really scary and then reassuring
you that we’re not sure whether or not
we need to be that scared about these
microplastics and nanoplastics yet okay
what I want to do is give you the
evidence so you can decide how much
effort you put into limiting your
exposure to these microplastics and
nanoplastics and how much effort you put
into trying to rid your body of them
okay I’m not here to paint the picture
one way or the other because frankly the
data just don’t line up with one
argument or the other that they’re
extremely dangerous or that they’re
nothing to worry about let me give you
an example of something that you might
have heard in the media and on recent
podcasts out there that’s very scary the
argument based on what seem to be a
pretty high quality publication that you
may have heard is that every single week
we ingest up to a credit card’s worth of
microplastics and nanoplastics okay you
might have seen that in headlines and in
other podcasts and indeed there was a
paper arguing that however a more recent
paper looked at the quantitative
analysis they used used a different
quantitative analysis and claimed that
they vastly overestimated the amount of
plastic that we ingest every week what
do I mean by vastly overestimated this
newer analysis of the same data claims
that the credit card’s worth of plastic
that it was argued we can consume every
week well that was an overestimate by a
millionfold and in fact it would take
23,000 years to consume enough plastic
to lead to that credit card’s worth of
plastic in our bodies okay so now we
have very discrepant data or rather we
have very discrepant analyses of the
same data so you’re starting to get a
picture of just how confusing this whole
field is but we’re going to parse it a
little bit further by saying that it’s
also very clear that microplastics and
nanoplastics Plastics are everywhere
okay they’re just everywhere you look in
fact if I were a PhD adviser for
somebody in toxicology or a PhD adviser
for somebody in environmental science
and they needed to have a Sure Fire
publication I’d probably suggest that
they work on microplastics and go out
there and try and find yet another
source of microplastics and use a better
analysis for instance okay doing a
graduate thesis isn’t just about getting
a publication but what I’m trying to
refer to here is that wherever people
look for microplastic they find them
this is true in our environment and this
is true in food this is true in water
and this is also true for our tissues so
in the last couple of years there’s been
an explosion in the number of scientific
studies exploring which tissues of the
human body so not just animal models but
the human body contain microplastics and
nanoplastics okay so by examining
postmortem tissues that is tissues from
people who are deceased it’s been
discovered that there are microplastics
and nanoplastics lodged in the brain so
if you take the brain of a deceased
adult human what you find is that they
have about 05% of the total weight of
the brain from microplastic so this is
about a teaspoon of salt or sugars worth
of microplastics might not seem like
much but if you think about how little
neurons are um a typical neuron will
have a cell body this is the area that
contains the nucleus with all the DNA
and so forth uh that cell bodies of
neurons vary in size tremendously ly
they can be as small as you know five to
eight microns across to as much as gosh
I’ve seen some neurons down the
microscope that are um you know 50
microns I’ve seen some that are 100
microns across it depends where you look
in the nervous system okay so if you
start to think about a half teaspoon of
powder of microplastics and nanoplastics
that’s a lot of microplastics and
nanoplastics that could be distributed
in lots of different places in the brain
and a little bit later we’ll talk about
what the potential impact is of these
microplastics and nanoplastics on the
function of particular types of neurons
that may impact things like
neurodevelopmental trajectories okay the
argument has been made I’m not making
this argument but the argument has been
made that microplastics and nanoplastics
may correlate with things like autism
May correlate with things like attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder I don’t
actually believe that the data there are
strong enough to make those arguments at
all however I will tell you that the
presence of microp Plastics and
nanoplastics in the brains that is
postmortem tissue okay so decease people
taking the brain chopping up the brain
looking at down the microscope and
seeing microplastics and then
quantifying the amount of microplastics
in different compartments of the brain
and distribute it across the brain that
is concerning to me in the sense that
there’s enough of it in there and the
function of neurons in the nervous
system is precise enough that you could
imagine given that these microplastics
and nanoplastics are lodged in
particular categories of neurons that do
in fact impact things like reward and
motivation things like movement Etc that
they could be impacting the function of
the nervous system but there’s no direct
causal relationship at least not in
humans there’s some interesting data in
animal models we’ll get back to that a
little bit later so there’s
microplastics and nanoplastics in brain
you’ll find microplastics and
nanoplastics in other tissues that have
a blood organ barrier what do I mean by
that well the brain is encapsulated in
the so-called BBB the blood brain
barrier and that’s because your brain
tissue because it doesn’t turn over
across the lifespan you don’t produce
many new neurons there are a few places
you produce new neurons like the
olfactory bulb the dentate gyus of the
hippocampus a few places but these are
far and few between most of your brain
tissue that you’re born with is the
brain tissue that you’re going to die
with provided you don’t lose that brain
tissue through the course of your
lifespan through a head injury or
something like that the neurons you have
when you are born actually are far more
numerous than the neurons you have at
the time when you die this is important
and it’s one of the reasons we have a
bloodb brain barrier nature is very
smart IT designed a barrier so that
molecules that might be dangerous to the
brain can’t enter the brain and that’s
what the BBB is for microplastics and
nanoplastics are making it from the
bloodstream into the brain okay this is
what I mean when I say they can cross
the blood brain barrier then if we take
a step back and we ask ourselves what
are some other tissues in the body that
have a very robust barrier from the
blood because a lot of things get into
the blood and that’s not necessarily
good but it’s not necessarily bad if you
can excrete those things right we have a
lot of detoxification mechanisms that
include our liver detoxification Etc but
if these particles are getting from the
blood into the brain what are some other
tissues that they’re getting into that
have these thick barriers or these very
stringent
barriers as you can imagine two other
tissues that have very stringent blood
to organ barriers are the blood
testicular barrier why would that be
okay why would you protect brain Well it
can’t renew you don’t want those neurons
to get contaminated with things so you
put a BB be in a blood brain barrier you
also put a blood testicular barrier in
males why well that’s where the DNA are
that’s where the so-called germ cells
are so you don’t want things getting
into the testicle and mutating the DNA
there because then those mutated DNA
could be passed on to offspring guess
what microplastics and nanoplastics can
cross the blood testicular barrier and
in fact there was a lot of press this
last year about microplastics and
nanoplastics being present in every
human testicle that was analyzed in or I
should say from postmortem tissue
likewise there’s a blood follicle
barrier in females okay this is where
the eggs come from and microplastics and
nanoplastics can cross the blood
follicular barrier so this is why people
are starting to get concerned right I
suppose we shouldn’t be so surprised
that we’re inhaling microplastics given
that they are everywhere I should
mention that you know there wasn’t much
plastic around or in use prior to the
1950s if any of you have ever seen the
movie The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman
this is the only time you’ll see
somebody driving Eastward across the bay
bridge all right toward from San
Francisco toward Berkeley on the top
deck it actually runs in the other
direction they shut down the baybridge
that’s in The Graduate and the other
thing that’s in The Graduate is this
famous scene if you’re old enough like
me to Remember the movie The Graduate
Dustin Hoffman’s lying in the pool it’s
after his graduation he’s lying in the
pool he doesn’t really know what he’s
going to do with his life and this guy
comes up to him and he says you know the
future is Plastics and it became this
kind of famous line or pseudo famous
line now that movie takes place at at a
time when Plastics were really booming
as an industry and indeed polyethylene
polyurethane these plastic materials
were developed because they were very
durable they were long lasting in fact
they are not biodegradable they’re not
broken down very easily if at all and
certainly not within biological tissues
these Plastics went from essentially
non-existent in the 1940s and prior to
in pretty much everything involved in
manufacturing okay even in different
aspects of uh surgical implants and
things of that sort so Plastics are
indeed everywhere and that started in
the 1950s hence that line from The
Graduate so it’s not surprising that
microplastics and nanoplastics would get
into our body right if they’re
everywhere in our environment and we’re
inhaling them all day then of course
they’ll get into our lungs and then
they’re small enough they can get into
our bloodstream but as I mentioned the
body has these cleansing systems these
detoxification systems to remove things
but they’re not removing the
microplastics or at least not all of
them from brain testicle and follicle
and I should point out that
microplastics and nanoplastics are also
found in all the other tissues of the
body in fact I don’t think there’s a
single investigation of human tissue or
animal tissue for microplastics or
nanoplastics where they didn’t get a
positive result meaning where they
didn’t find them in the tissue you can
find them in not just the upper lungs
but in the lower lungs so they’re
getting deposited in the lower lungs you
can find them in the bloodstream from
from a blood draw you can find them in
human placenta and you can find them in
What’s called the meconium which is the
first stool that a baby takes this is
typically taken within the or the stool
is given given taken it’s taken by the
doctor it’s actually analyzed for
various things it contains bile and a
bunch of other things it’s actually an
important indicator of the health of the
child um it turns out that this first
stool that happens in the first 24 hours
or so after birth when that’s been
analyzed for
microplastics there too you find
microplastics and nanoplastics and
that’s really got people concerned
because what this means is that
microplastics and nanop Plastics that
mothers are ingesting or that they
somehow have lodged in their bodies are
making their way to the fetus now you
could say well is it really a problem
well a few years ago is it was at least
concerning enough that bpas and we’ll
talk more about bpas bisphenol a which
is a component of microplastics this is
a known endocrine disruptor it disrupts
certain estrogen-like Pathways we’ll get
into this in a few minutes bisphenol a
and bpas were banned from sippy cups and
kids and from any food containers for
young kids so the FDA in the United
States and there are European countries
as well had enough date on this or
enough concern about this to say listen
we are going to make it illegal to have
BPA line sippy cups or food containers
for young kids in part because the BPA
is correlated with microplastics and
nanoplastics so what I’m saying here is
that the government has taken pretty
avid measures to restrict the amount of
BPA exposure through microplastics and
nanoplastics to young kids and yet the
fetus clearly is being exposed to
microplastics and nanoplastics this is
why at the beginning I mentioned if you
are pregnant or you have young kids or
if you are a young kid you want to go
out of your way to limit your exposure
to these microplastics and nanoplastics
but if you’re an older adult you
probably want to do the same and we’ll
talk about ways that you can do that so
I could go on and on about the various
tissues besides placenta in your
bloodstream brain testes follicle lower
lungs you can find nanoplastics in the
liver you can find microplastics and
nanoplastics in pretty much every tissue
that you look for them the real question
is how detrimental are these
microplastics and nanoplastics and then
of course we can talk about where
they’re coming from specifically in ways
that you can control and limit and when
I say control and limit what we’re
really talking about here is yes trying
to limit your exposure to these things
if I were to w rattle off the different
sources of microplastics and
nanoplastics you would go wide-eyed and
you would probably also just say okay I
Surrender they’re truly everywhere in
fact I’ll do that okay I can’t help but
do that but keep in mind you do have
some control uh in terms of the end
result of these microplastics and
nanoplastics on your health so here I go
plastic bags storage containers bottle
caps rope gear strapping utensils cups
floats coolers containers rope fishing
nets textiles sorry I’m not laughing
because it’s funny I’m laughing CU it’s
just pretty much everywhere latex paint
Coatings medical devices Automotive
Parts tires on the road degrading giving
off little microplastics into the air
microplastics raining down from the sky
literally pipe film containers laminated
safety glass car windshield oh great
even the car windshield drinking bottles
textile fibers resins paints varnish
construction Automotive Parts okay so
basically everywhere right these things
are everywhere huh so what are we to do
well what we are to do is to limit the
long-term accumulation of microplastics
and nanoplastics in our system there are
ways that we can limit their
introduction to our system but as long
as you’re breathing as long as you’re
walking around as long as you’re near a
road you are exposed to microplastics so
until there’s a huge movement to make
better tires that don’t degrade as
quickly or to create filters in our home
environments that remove the
microplastics which frankly I think both
of those things are not reasonable
expectations at least not in this
lifetime well until then what you can do
is you can try and limit their entry and
accumulation into your body so rather
than list off all the ways that you can
limit so-called bio accumulation of
microplastics and nanoplastics at the
beginning or at the end of today’s
episode I’m going to intersperse them at
times that are relevant to what I just
discussed about how microplastics get
into our system and the tissues they are
lodged in so I’ll tell you right now
that a few ways that you can really do
your a service in limiting your exposure
to microplastics is to limit your
consumption of water from plastic
bottles okay that might seem kind of
obvious but check out these data this is
pretty
wild there was an analysis of the number
of microplastic and nanoplastic
particles in bottled water and it was
estimated that there were about 30,000
of these particles per liter of water
okay and those data stood for quite a
long time
then Imaging techniques for measuring
the number of these different particles
in particular the really small Nano
particles the ones that are less than
one micron in diameter the Imaging tools
for those improved okay and I’ll explain
a little bit about that in a moment and
there was a paper published in the
proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences in 2024 that showed that the
amount of nanoplastic in particular but
microplastic and nanoplastics that are
present in bottled water was actually
vastly
underestimated in that previous study
rather than 30,000 particles per liter
the reanalysis with better methods
showed that it was anywhere from 110 all
the way up to
400,000 particles per liter and the
average was 240,000 particles per liter
so that means that the amount of
microplastics and nanoplastics in
bottled water is actually much much
higher than we initially thought and a
very simple way to limit your exposure
to microplastics and nanoplastics is to
avoid drinking water from plastic
bottles in particular plastic bottles
that have been heated up now you might
say well I don’t heat up my plastic
water bottles right but you don’t know
what happened to those plastic water
bottles and root to the store you bought
them at or and root to your refrigerator
right they could have sat in the back of
a hot truck they could have sat in the
back of a loading dock any number of
different things now this is not to say
that if you drink the occasional water
out of a plastic bottle that you’re
going to harm your health I’m absolutely
not saying that however it’s pretty
clear that there’s a lot of
microplastics and nanoplastics that are
completely avoidable at least avoidable
in terms of your ingestion of them in
plastic water bottles so it makes sense
to me why you would want to avoid those
also as a consumable that’s not very
reusable I suppose you could reuse those
plastic bottles but most people don’t at
least they don’t use them for very long
they get pretty flimsy pretty
quickly you’re much better off having
either a stainless steel bottle or some
sort of ceramic mug or or using glass or
using some other vessel for water that
is reusable and of course that is not
made of plastic and then of course the
question arises how much microplastic
and nanoplastic is in tap water and it
turns out there’s quite a lot of it now
it varies according to location but
there are ways that you can get those
microplastics and nanoplastics out of
your tap water the best way turns out to
be a little bit expensive admittedly and
that’s to use a reverse osmosis filter
so reverse osmosis filters will get rid
of all the microplastics nanoplastics of
course it will also remove some key
minerals from the water so you’ll have
to remineralize that water if one looks
at the price of reverse osmosis
filtration systems they’re not cheap uh
they can range anywhere from 300 to 500
or even $600 for a home unit and many of
those units will remineralize the water
so basically it takes the water cleans
out the microplastics nanoplastics and a
bunch of other bad stuff that you don’t
want and then it’s going to remineralize
the water so that you’re getting enough
minerals your water now if you look at
the cost of a reverse osmosis filter I
like you kind of go a little wide-eyed
like that’s a lot of money for water but
if one thinks about the total amount of
money one spends in a given year on
plastic bottled water that we consume
and then you know throw away essentially
the bottles or even bottled water from
glass bottles I’ve in the habit of
trying to drink water from glass bottles
and when you go out and you buy those
you feel better that you’re not
consuming a lot of microplastics and
nanoplastics but they are very expensive
so the costs probably line up pretty
well and when I did that analysis I
realized well actually the home reverse
osmosis filter with remineralization
actually will save on costs provided
that one is good about filling glass
bottles or stainless steel bottles with
that water and making sure to you know
when you leave the house to take those
bottles with you again I don’t think
it’s possible for everyone to avoid all
consumption of water from plastic
bottles that’s just not reasonable to
expect right you don’t want to be that
person that’s carrying around water
everywhere you go to friends houses at
dinner Etc I don’t think we need to be
that concerned about the amount of
microplastic and nanoplastic in water
sources it’s certainly you wouldn’t want
to avoid drinking water from plastic
bottles to the point where you dehydrate
yourself or put yourself at risk I’m not
trying to create that kind of concern
here what I’m trying to say is if you
are concerned about microplastics and
nanoplastics and you really want to
limit your exposure one of the best ways
to do that is to limit your consumption
of water from plastic bottles and
because microplastics and nanoplastics
are present in tap water you’re going to
need some way to remove those
microplastics and nanoplastics from your
tap water if you’re very concerned about
them I’m not here to say everyone should
do this I’m certainly not saying that
I’m saying that if you are concerned
about microplastics and nanoplastics and
we’ll talk about some of the reasons one
might want to be concerned about them
well then installing a reverse osmosis
filtration system on your home water
might be a good idea and it’s likely to
save you costs if you look at it in
comparison to buying disposable bottles
of water now there are a lot of other
other ways besides drinking water from
plastic bottles that microplastics and
nanoplastics make their way into our
system and I can list off many of them
but I’m trying to create a hierarchy
here of the things that are potentially
the major sources and the ones that we
can most easily avoid and that are
likely to save us costs overall so one
thing that’s very clear is that there’s
a lot of microplastics and nanoplastics
in sea salt who would have thought but
then you think about it and it’s like
well this stuff is getting out into the
ocean there’s a lot of plastic in the
ocean it’s a super depressing scene when
one sees the pictures of all the plastic
floating out there in fact there’s a
book that I read in preparation for this
episode gosh it was so depressing but
important for me to read uh maybe you
want to read it as well it’s quite good
although it it will be a bit of a downer
uh the title of the book is a poison
like no other how microplastics
corrupted our planet and our bodies by
Matt Simon and I listened to this book
and gosh it really convinces you that
there’s microplastics every where both
on land in the air and in the ocean
unfortunately and of course sea salt
comes from the ocean so a simple
solution to this is if you’re going to
use salt and I’m a big fan of salt not
overdoing it but salt has its role right
it’s a wonderful substance both for sake
of taste and for sake of Health I did an
episode about salt again don’t over
consume salt don’t blast your blood
pressure don’t blow a gasket but many
people would do well to have a little
bit more salt especially if you’re
eating a really clean diet especially if
you’re hydrating very
well focus on something like pink
Himalayan salt or salt that comes from a
nonmarine source okay it’s very simple
to do it’s some of the best salt out
there it’s not terribly expensive and
you would do well to avoid sea salt and
get your salt from those other sources
in doing so you’re going to lower your
exposure to microplastics and
nanoplastics there’s some pretty scary
pictures of sea salt under the
microscope and all the little bits of
plas IC that are in there and you only
have to see those pictures once or just
hear it from me to make the shift to
Himalayan sea salt or in the pink salt
is pretty it looks nice it tastes great
so that’s an easy very lowcost shift
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claim that special offer Okay so we’ve
talked about bottled watered sources and
filtering your water we talked about sea
salt another major source of these
microplastics that was very surprising
to me is from the lining of canned soup
I don’t think I’m ever going to eat
canned soup again unless I absolutely
need to sorry cannn soup companies but
there was a study the study was entitled
canned soup consumption and urinary
bisphenol a a randomized crossover trial
I’ll describe a little bit more about
what bisphenol a is a little bit later
but bisphenol a is a known endocrine
disruptor it mimics estrogen in ways
that can activate or block estrogenic
Pathways so it messes up hormone
Pathways either by activating them or
blocking them it can also bind to
Androgen receptors potentially and cause
some issues there bisphenol a or BPA is
not a good thing turns out there’s lots
of it in the lining of Soup cans the
reason is soup tends to be a little bit
fatty so even if you get the non-fat
soup it tends to have some lipid in
there and it also has some acidity to it
and the lining helps maintain the flavor
and the freshness of the soup in those
cans in this study what they did is they
gave people either fresh soup or canned
soup for 5 days then they did a
so-called two-day wash out where they
took a break from soup and then they
reversed the conditions I’ll cut to the
chase here because the conclusion of
this study is wild what they found was
that consumption of one serving of
canned soup daily over the course of 5
days here I’m quoting by the way was
associated with more than a th% increase
in urinary BPA in bisphenol a now that’s
urinary BPA so people are excreting it I
want to emphasize that but a
thousandfold increase in BPA from canned
soup I don’t know I’m not alarmist but I
only have to read this once think about
my love of can soup not that great done
I’m not eating canned soup again unless
I’m absolutely starving and I need some
soup very very badly my suggestion would
be unless you have a powerful reason to
consume canned soup don’t consume canned
soup the one caveat being that if you
can find canned soup that does not have
any BPA that is it says no bpas on the
container well then go at it have as
much canned soup as you want but I
should be very clear that a lot of
canned products now say no BPA but they
contain other endocrine disruptors and
the amount of microplastics and
nanoplastics in those soups is still
unknown so part of my hidden motivation
of this episode and perhaps the
motivation of other podcasters in the
health space that are talking about
microplastics now and by the way Dr
Ronda Patrick did a really wonderful
podcast about microplastics just
recently we didn’t coordinate that’s why
we both ended up doing it roughly at the
same time we talked about it afterwards
and chuckled about that I guess you know
we’re both interested in some of the
same themes of
course one of the perhaps hidden agendas
is that some of these food manufacturing
companies and beverage manufacturing
companies will start to include more
thorough descriptions on their labeling
of what is and is not contained in the
various products such as canned soup and
water Etc not just no bpas but hopefully
some of the other things that are
problematic that we’ll talk about in a
moment such as BPS which is another
endocrine disruptor so if you see no BPA
sometimes there’s still BPS in there
okay we’ll talk about BPS as well as
phalates which are something that make
plastic and other containers more
durable and more flexible and phalates
have been discussed by people like Dr
Shaina Swan who will soon be a guest on
this podcast and has shown up on other
podcasts talking about how phalates are
known endocrine disruptors in
development and likely in adulthood as
well so I guess my push for you to never
consume canned soup again might be a
little bit harsh that’s just my decision
here’s what I’ll do I’ll make a bargain
with the canned soup companies if you
all start putting a more thorough
description about what is and is not
contained in those Soup cans all right
not just no BPA but is there truly also
no BPS are there no Fates Etc then maybe
I’ll make the move back to canned soup
and of course most of you have probably
heard that that you’re not supposed to
microwave plastic containers now you’ll
see microwave safe on a number of
different containers that just means
that it’s not going to melt in the
microwave it does not mean that you
aren’t being exposed to microplastics
and nanoplastics and bpas BPS phalates
Etc so in general it’s a good idea to
avoid putting any kind of plastic into
the microwave at least if you’re going
to microwave food and then consume that
food the other surprising at least to me
source of bpas and bps’s so these
endocrine disruptors and microplastics
and nanoplastics that’s very robust is
paper cups goodness gracious I would
have thought paper cups are safe but you
know those paper cups that you put hot
liquids into and that often have a
plastic lid well even if they don’t have
a plastic lid on them the lining of the
paper cup which makes those cups durable
when you put hot liquids in there like
hot coffee or hot tea well that contains
typically unless it says no BPA and no
BPS it contains lots of BPA and bps’s
microplastics nanoplastics and so
putting hot liquid in there actually
there was an analysis that showed that
if liquid that’s heated up to 100° f is
put in those containers it starts to
leech out it starts to pull those
microplastics nanoplastics bpas and BPS
from the cup Linings so the other day I
went across the street and bought a cup
of coffee of course they sold it to me
in a paper cup and I thought oh goodness
I forgot to bring my mug and my my
travel mug my stainless steel mug or my
ceramic mug did I not purchase the
coffee no I had already ordered the
coffee I didn’t walk back what I did is
as soon as I got back I took the coffee
and I poured it into a ceramic mug so
I’m not extremist I’m not somebody who’s
going to completely avoid these things
but in the future I’ll try and remember
to bring my mug over some places even
give you a little discount on your
coffee so again these are cost-saving
approaches you’re certainly limiting or
reducing the amount of waste that you’re
creating in the world so that can only
be a good thing okay and the plastic
Lids probably a good idea to avoid
drinking through those plastic Lids too
often again I want to emphasize I’m not
one of these people that’s going to
freak out about drinking a hot liquid
through a plastic lid these
microplastics and nanoplastics are
everywhere we’re consuming them all the
time we can remove them from our body
and later we’ll talk about ways that you
can accelerate or increase the amount of
removal of them from your body but if
we’re just a little bit more conscious
about how they get into our body and
we’re a little bit more conscious about
the elevated cost and the elevated
amount of trash that’s going to recycle
into landfill and so on probably a good
idea to just bring your mug with you
your travel mug with you try and make
those mugs and travel mugs ceramic
stainless steel or some other vessel
that doesn’t contain bpas or bps’s
before we move on to talk about what
happens when microplastics and
nanoplastics make it into say the
testicle or the brain like what the
consequences of that is and are I want
to just briefly return to something that
I flew past a while ago and that’s the
analysis of microplastics and
nanoplastic particles that are in
bottled water remember initially it was
thought to be 30,000 particles per liter
then later it was discovered using
better techniques that it’s actually
more like 240,000 on average particles
per liter how did that huge discrepancy
in data arise now I realize this is not
a data analysis discussion but I want to
talk about this just briefly because it
illustrates for you something really
important about science which is as
tools for measurement get better so does
our understanding about what’s going on
in our brains and bodies and it’s a very
simple and kind of cool thing related to
light so you could imagine that the
first paper was looking under the
microscope at a drop of water taken from
a bottle that was plastic and then
imaged the number of little plastic
particles in there you’d say well
there’s a particle and there’s a
particle and there’s a particle and
there are tools that can count those
particles well what if you have two
particles that are really close together
right if you recall microplastics are
anywhere from one micron in diameter all
the way up to 5 millimet in diameter but
nanoplastics are less than one micron in
diameter so how do you know that when
you see a clump of stuff under the
microscope in that drop of water that
you’re looking at one big piece of
plastic versus thousands and thousands
of little pieces of nanoplastic or even
just much smaller pieces of microplastic
well it has to do with What’s called the
point spread function and I don’t really
want to get into this in too much detail
but basically when you shine light on
something you get uh kind of a little
Hill of light if you will there’s a Peak
at the center and then it had drops off
with distance the reason why the numbers
jumped from 30,000 to 240,000 is not
because the researchers got much better
it’s because the tools got much better
okay there are new Imaging techniques
and I’ll put a reference to this for
those of you that into this kind of
stuff entitled rapid single particle
chemical Imaging of nanoplastics by SRS
microscopy okay pretty nerdy stuff but
it’s fun if you’re interested in light
and how light can illuminate things and
show detail or not detail but basically
what we’re realizing is that there are a
lot more particles of plastic in
different tissues in different things
that we’re ingesting Etc because we’re
getting better and better ways of
separating those clumps of light into
lots of little clumps of light and
realizing oh that looked like one
particle right remember it’s particles
per liter it’s not one particle it’s
10,000 particles now you might say okay
well what’s the difference between a
bunch of little particles and one big
particle ah there’s a big difference
what’s the big difference little
particles can make it across barriers
that big particles can’t these little
nanop particles of plastic are
especially concerning because those are
the ones that you find in greatest
abundance or I should say among the
Plastics that you find in different
tissues the ones that are in greatest
abundance in the brain the testes and
the follicle again these tissues that
nature and evolution have gone out of
their way to protect with these very
stringent barriers like the blood brain
barrier like the blood testicular
barrier like the blood follicle barrier
those are the ones that are getting
across because they’re very very small
they can sneak through the little holes
in those biological fences they’re
getting deposited in those tissues brain
testicle and follicle and they’re
staying there at least until people die
which in the case of the analysis of
postmortem tissue is many many decades
later okay so I’m not just raising this
discussion about ways to disambiguate
large particles from small particles
just to be nerdy and Technical it turns
out to be a really important issue with
real biological implications okay so
lots of itty bitty little pieces of
plastic getting their way into tissues
like brain follicle testes liver lung
Etc what are some of the implications of
this now there are a lot of animal data
data in fish data in mice Etc that have
explored how microplastics and
nanoplastics can disrupt any number of
different biological functions but it’s
probably worth looking at how
nanoplastic and microplastic
accumulation in specific tissues is
correlated with specific Health
detriments in humans even though the
data are correlative right it’s much
harder to get causal data from Human
studies because the animal studies
frankly are hard to translate to humans
in this case in particular because a lot
of the features of animal biology while
similar to human biology humans are
animals but you get the point they don’t
correspond so easily when looking at
microplastics and nanoplastics for the
following reason let’s say you have a
little fish that fish is a couple
centimeters long and it turns out
there’s uh I don’t know about an aspirin
size of microplastics and nanoplastics
in that fish when that fish is analyzed
postmortem you say okay well that’s kind
of a lot right an aspirin’s worth in a
or an aspirin siiz batch of
microplastics and nanoplastics in that
little fish and then you look in humans
and you realize okay well there’s more
microplastics and nanoplastics but not
that much more how much of a detriment
is there really going to be can you look
at the study in the fish seeing for
instance and this has been demonstrated
that you have disruption in neurological
Pathways the formation of those Pathways
like brain development is altered
reproductive function is altered Etc
it’s hard to translate we don’t really
know what it means in terms of humans so
we’ll turn to the correlative data in
humans and I’ll look to the strongest
data at least that I could find out
there and there kind of three major
cases that I think are worth
highlighting the first one is that there
was a study done in humans this is
published in 2021 it was published in
the Journal of environmental science and
technology that found much higher levels
of microplastics in the stool samples of
people that were diagnosed with
irritable bowel syndrome okay irritable
bowel syndrome is very disruptive to
people’s well-being there isn’t an
obvious cure for irritable bowel
syndrome although some people find
Relief by improving their gut microbiota
by limiting body-wide and gut
inflammation through any number of
different things improving sleep and
eating a low- inflammation diet Etc this
is something that I’ll probably cover in
a future episode of the hubman podcast
gastrointestinal challenges that is so I
want to be very clear there was no
direct causation established but it was
clear that there were higher levels of
microplastics found in the stool tissue
coming from people who had irritable
bowel syndrome than in individuals who
did not have irritable bowel syndrome
and while no study is perfect they
included a number of important controls
in the experiment to control for age
range and some other features so it’s
reasonable to assume that the
accumulation of microplastics in the gut
or somewhere along the GI tract had
somehow led to or related to irritable
bowel syndrome okay now you could also
Imagine the reverse this is very
important to understand you could also
imagine that people who had irritable
bowel syndrome perhaps are less good at
filtering microplastics and nanoplastics
from the food and liquids they consume
than are people who don’t have irritable
bowel syndrome so the causality if it
exists at all could run in either
direction or both nonetheless I think
it’s an interesting study and if you’re
somebody who suffers from
gastrointestinal distress such as
irritable bowel syndrome or otherwise I
think you’d be wise indeed all people
would be wise but I think you’d be
especially wise to take into
consideration some of the to-dos and not
to-dos that I’m covering during today’s
episode such as avoiding consuming water
from plastic bottles some of the stuff
we talked about earlier avoiding canned
soup and other BPA BPS containing
containers and things of that sort or
things that come from those containers
the other area where there was some
really interesting correlative data
relates to reproductive function and
Hormone Health and this is where we can
start to get into a bit more detail
about bpas and bps’s and phalates and
some of their roles in disrupting
endocrine that is hormone Pathways so
there’s a study I’ll put a link to in
the show note captions that’s entitled
the urinary phalate metabolites are
associated with decreased serum
testosterone so that’s in blood in men
women and children okay
this is an interesting study for a
number of reasons first of all it
emphasizes something that everybody
should know which is that testosterone
plays key roles in men women and kids
okay it is not the case that
testosterone is just present in men and
boys it’s also present in women and
girls and it plays an important role in
everybody okay it’s involved of course
in some of the things that we normally
associate with testosterone such as
muscle mass bone density strength Etc
but testosterone can be converted to
estrogen testosterone is involved in
libido in both men and women it’s
involved in brain development in boys
and girls in genitalia development and
on and on so it’s an important hormone
and it was clear from this study that
elevated levels of phalates that is
phalate metabolites are associated with
lower testosterone levels in all those
populations they point out quote that
the strongest and most consistent
inverse relationships between level of
phalates and testosterone that is
elevated phalate metabolites lower
testosterone were found among women ages
40 to 60 years this is very important if
you saw the episode that we did with Dr
Mary Clair Haver on per menopause
menopause she emphasized that per
menopause menopause which typically sets
in somewhere between one’s late 40s and
6s okay there’s huge variation there
sometimes as early as one’s 30s that
would be early however more often in
one’s 40s and 50s sometimes as late as
60s involves reductions in estrogen but
also in testosterone and this has major
implications for creating less feelings
of vigor lowered libido less recovery
from exercise and other life stressors
and things of that sort now the study
also interestingly shows that in quote
adult men the only significant or
suggestive inverse association between
phalate metabolites and testosterone
were observed among men 40 to 60 years
old now there are a number of different
ways that we could interpret those data
one is that men younger than 40 have
high enough levels of testosterone that
or the ranges ofest testosterone are
great enough in that sample of younger
than 40 years old that somehow that was
able to swamp out any reductions in
testosterone that were caused by phalate
metabolites or rather that once men get
from 40 to 60 years old that there’s
somehow a vulnerability of the
testosterone Pathways to phalates or and
none of these are mutually exclusive of
course that the phalates had built up in
those men’s system over a number of
years and then we’re having their major
effects on those men between 40 and 60
years old I do find it interesting that
the major effects were observed in both
men and women 40 to 60 years old and the
interpretation of those data that makes
the most sense to me at least is that
there’s a cumulative effect of these
phalates over time that reveals itself
at least statistically in men and women
once they reach 40 to 60 years so what
are these thades well these thades are
things that are included in Plastics
that house liquids and foods that we eat
or that we cook with or that simply
exist in our environment and are getting
broken down and that we’re inhaling and
then are making their way across the
blood testes barrier blood follicle
barrier or into any number of other
tissues those phalates are there of
course to make plastic more flexible and
durable but they are known endocrine
disruptors Dr Shaina swan has done
beautiful work showing that young
animals and potentially humans who are
exposed to phalates from things like
pesticides in particular can actually
have a
fairly major disruption in What’s called
the anogenital distance okay withhold
your Chuckles the distance between the
penis and the anus uh in people that
have been exposed to phalates or mothers
of boys that have been exposed to
phalates those boys are born with a
shorter penile to anal distance okay
typically it’s of a certain distance and
there’s a correlation with reduced
anogenital distance that is a external
marker okay it’s not that that itself is
necessarily A Bad Thing that’s not what
we’re saying here but that’s an external
marker that can be measured in mice and
there are some studies that are
exploring that in humans as well that
correlates with a number of other things
including lower sperm counts reduced
sperm motility and things of that sort
likewise bpas the bisphenol A and
BPS are known endocrine disruptors I
talked about this a little bit earlier
they’re known to bind estrogen receptors
so they mimic estrogen sometimes they
activate those estrogen receptor
dependent Pathways so they literally
mimic
estrogen sometimes they block those
estrogen receptors so the estrogen
cannot have the normal role of docking
in those receptors and causing their
normal functions and BPA and to some
extent BPS and potentially phalates can
dock to Androgen receptors as well
sometimes referred to as testosterone
receptors Androgen receptors so the
point is that bpas bps’s and phalates
are not good for endocrine function and
they are present in basically all
Plastics unless it says no BPA or all
phalates removed they’re present in
herbicides Etc and they are of real
concern and it’s very clear as I
mentioned earlier that you can detect
microplastics in human testes and I
didn’t mention this earlier and in semen
and it is now very clear that that’s
correlated with reduced sperm counts and
lower sperm motility now I also want to
be very clear remember I’m not an
alarmist I want to be clear that just
because sperm counts are significantly
lower and people that have a certain
amount of microplastics and nanoplastics
potentially in their testes or that
they’ve been exposed to does not
necessarily mean that they’re infertile
it is true that total sperm count and
sperm motility forward motility being an
important indicator of sperm
Health are correlated with one’s ability
to fertilize an egg okay this was
covered in a quite long but quite
detailed episode that I did about
fertility in both males and females
there a number of things one can do to
increase sperm counts or to at least
limit sperm count depletion there number
of things that one can do to improve
sperm motility I encourage you to check
out that episode I’ll provide a link to
it in the show note captions in fact
I’ll link to the specific time stamp in
the show note captions that gets to
those uh particular strategies but the
point here is that microplastics and
nanoplastics are found in human testes
and that’s correlated with reductions in
sperm count and reductions in sperm
motility I’d like to take a quick break
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huberman another study that got people’s
attention that I think is worth
mentioning which relates to
microplastics nanoplastics and
cardiovascular disease this was a study
published in the New England Journal of
Medicine in 2024 so this is a a
fabulously good
journal and what it found was that
polyethylene which is a component of
many Plastics out there were detected in
the cored artery plaques of in this case
150 patients which is approximately 58%
of the ones that were included in the
study and they also found using a
technique called electron microscopy
today’s fun because we get to talk about
different types of microscopy electron
microscopy allows you to look at things
that are smaller than a micron you can
look all the way down into the nanometer
range right you can start breaking up
that 1 1,000th of a millimeter into
nanometers and you can start to see
things that are really really small and
in this study electron microscopy showed
that there were these little Jagged Edge
foreign particles among the plaque
macras of the cardiovascular plaques
okay macrofagos are part of the immune
system these are cells that go in and
try and eat things up they’re kind of
like little ambulances later we’re going
to talk about microa which are the
brain’s resident microphases or
microphages depending on where you live
and how you like to pronounce it but the
point here is that when using a
technique like electron microscopy that
allows you to look at really really
small stuff it was very clear that the
plaques that form these you know
basically occlusions within the arteries
these are not good um this is one of the
reasons you want to eat properly and do
cardiovascular exercise and take great
care of yourself Etc electron microscopy
made very clear that there were little
plastic foreign Jagged particles
deposited in some of these plaques now
were they the cause of these plaques did
they contribute to some of the occlusion
caused by those plaques unclear but it’s
reasonable to assume that they form part
of the physical substrate that could ude
blood flow through these arteries which
of course leads to cardiovascular events
which of course are not good so I’ll put
a link to the study in the show note
captions again these are correlative
studies in humans correlative studies
are only that they’re just correlative
but I’m trying to provide a patchwork of
things that suggest that it would indeed
be a good idea to try and limit your
ingestion or at least facilitate the
removal of microplastics and
nanoplastics from your system another
reason to do that relates to the
so-called peases okay these are a group
of chemicals sometimes referred to as
the quote unquote forever chemicals
because they are very longstanding once
they get into your system these things
have names other than pasas which is an
acronym things like perlu alkal things
like polyl alkaly I don’t know how good
my pronunciation of those is but um if
you look up the pases you’ll see that
these things are known to cause liver
damage they can damage the immune system
they are considered forever chemicals
because they are not broken down they
last forever then again some of the
other components of microplastics and
nanoplastic Plastics are also known to
last forever so you’re starting to get a
picture of these little tiny bits of
plastic some tinier than others
depositing themselves in our tissues
they’re everywhere out there they are
most prominent in certain sources but
they’re going to get into our system now
does that mean that we can’t get rid of
them no we absolutely can get rid of
them in fact we have a number of
different ways that we get rid of toxins
and foreign Invaders in our body some of
those include the immune system right
even if you have just some sort of
foreign object like a Splinter your
immune system has a reaction to that
typically you get some puss around it
some inflammation and that pus and
inflammation is part of the process of
isolating that forign Intruder that
splinter and then eventually creating
some tissues that extrude it or allow
you to extrude it you of course also
have what’s called your adaptive immune
system which doesn’t just react to the
presence of something foreign but
creates antibodies which can combat that
and so on and so forth so your body has
these frankly miraculous ways of dealing
with foreign Intruders of different
sorts
but it does seem that microplastics and
nanoplastics can deposit themselves in
their tissues and stay there does that
mean that you don’t have any chance of
getting them out no you have a liver
your liver yes contains microplastics
and nanoplastics very likely if you’ve
been alive for any amount of time but it
also has what’s called phase one and
phase two detoxification processes that
allow you to break down and get rid of
certain foreign products including
microplastics and nanoplastics so let’s
talk about liver Det detoxification and
some of the things that can facilitate
liver detoxification that you actually
have control over Okay so let’s talk
about liver
detoxification the liver is such a cool
organ it does so many cool things it’s
not just about detoxification by the way
it does all sorts of things related to
blood clotting it’s just an amazing
amazing organ we should probably do an
entire episode about the liver and not
just eating liver I’m not a fan of
eating liver I do it every once in a
while um because I’m told it’s
nutritious but let’s talk about the
living functioning liver there are two
types of liver detoxification processes
okay so this is not about detoxing your
liver you may hear about detoxing your
liver that’s a whole other discussion I
don’t want to get into at least not here
there’s type one and type two liver
detoxification okay there’s type one so
calleded phase one liver detoxification
is also called the oxidation phase it
involves something called cytochrome
p450 enzymes okay so enzymes are
involved in the breakdown of different
things it converts toxins into less
harmful components that ideally are
excreted from the body okay type two or
phase two liver detoxification again
this is not detoxification of your liver
this is detoxification by your liver is
also called the conjugation phase of
detoxification it involves enzymes that
attach molecules to toxins okay it makes
those toxins water soluble and easier to
excrete from the body in the form of
urine
okay it neutralizes reactive
intermediates from phase one okay so
phase one and phase two detoxification
work together during phase two of liver
control detoxification is where toxins
are broken down and those broken down
components are prepared to be removed
from the body okay it is thought that
the liver plays a primary role in the
removal of microplastics and
nanoplastics bpas and bps’s and by the
way I realize I didn’t say this earlier
and I should have
these bpas and bps’s are sometimes
chemical components within the
microplastics and nanoplastics they
sometimes attach themselves to the
microplastics and nanoplastics I should
have said that earlier forgive me the
microplastics and nanoplastics can act
as what are called vectors or carriers
of things like bpas bps’s phalates and
forever chemicals okay I should have
mentioned that earlier so type two that
is phase two of liver control
detoxification is where these toxins
that are in the body and potentially
these microplastics themselves and
nanoplastics themselves are not
necessarily broken down because some of
those things can’t be broken down but
where they are prepared to be excreted
from the body and we have some degree of
control over phase two of liver
controlled detoxification again I’m
calling it liver controlled
detoxification so that this doesn’t get
misconstrued as detoxing your liver
which frankly is a very controversial
topic and may not be possible at all
although simply by saying that I’m
probably going to get attacked but here
we’re just talking about your liver’s
ability to break down and remove things
from your body that you frankly don’t
want in your body one way that you can
enhance Phase 2 liver control
detoxification processes is by
increasing your intake of something
called sulphoraphane which is present in
cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli
and
cauliflower now is there enough
sulphoraphane in cruciferous vegetables
such that you could eat reasonable
amounts that you wouldn’t have to
overeat cruciferous vegetables in order
to get this enhancement of phase 2 liver
detoxification processes potentially yes
the animal studies that were carried out
so this would be in rodents like rats
used supplemented suhane at dosages that
were comparable to the amounts of
sulphoraphane that a human might ingest
from a large serving of broccoli or a
large serving of cauliflour so this
could be a few cups of raw broccoli or
raw cauliflower although frankly if
you’re like me that basically translates
to gastrointestinal distress I can’t
tell you how many times I’ve gone to a
party and there’s some like you know
broccoli and cauliflower maybe with some
dip or something like that I usually
avoid the dip because I’m not really
into dips but we’ll have a few pieces of
broccoli and boy does that disrupt my
gut I don’t know about you um and most
things don’t disrupt my gut that’s not
something that I uh struggle with I
prefer to cook broccoli and to cook
cauliflower if you cook broccoli and
cauliflower lightly okay so you don’t
just you know turn into a complete Mash
you don’t boil it such that a lot of the
nutrients are leeched out out into the
water around it so if you do sort of a
light boil or a steam or something like
that or you pan pan cook it maybe in
some olive oil this is making me hungry
by the way you’ll still maintain the
sulphoraphane in those cruciferous
vegetables meaning it’ll still be
beneficial to you now some people
including me don’t tend to eat that many
cruciferous vegetables I don’t know why
I just somehow don’t make it a point to
shop for them enough I ought to for
people like me or perhaps you’re in the
same boat you can supplement with
sulphoraphane and what you’ll find is
that sold by various companies and it’s
available at a quite wide range of
dosages you’ll see for instance two
products similarly priced one product
will contain 50 milligrams of
sulphoraphane the other product will
contain 225 milligrams of sulphoraphane
now if you go to what I consider a
really excellent website for thinking
about and evaluating this kind of stuff
which is examine.com I’ve talked a lot
about this um site on the podcast
before on examine.com they talk about
the translation of the rodent studies to
humans and here’s what they say they say
supplementation of .1 to.5 mg per
kilogram of sulphoraphane in rats has
been noted to be bioactive okay just
bioactive they’re not getting
specifically at removal microplastics or
nanoplastics and they translate that to
a human dose of okay if you’re 150 PB
person then that’s going to be anywhere
from 1.1 to 5.5 milligram for that 150
lb person if you’re a 200 lb person
that’s approximately my weight I think
right now I’m sitting somewhere around
215 so about 100 kg 215 I don’t know
somewhere in there hav’t uh stood on a
scale in a while it’s 1.5 to 7.2
milligrams for a 200 lb person now then
you think about the typical dosages that
are found in supplements of 50
milligrams per serving versus 225
milligrams per serving and in either
case you realize that that’s much much
higher than what’s being discussed here
so what that says to me is that I would
probably go with the lower dosage
although according to examine.com they
say quote these low quantities are
likely attainable through raw broccoli
or cruciferous vegetable products so
that’s great what this means is that you
don’t need to supplement with
sulphoraphane if you’re willing to eat
raw broccoli they’re specifically saying
raw broccoli or other cruciferous
vegetable products while higher dosages
may be further beneficial so this is
still a bit of a vague space I realize
there’s some discrepancies in what I’m
describing here I said you could like L
cook the broccoli or cauliflower that’s
my read and understanding of sorane that
it’s not broken down at low temperatures
but perhaps you just decide to eat it
raw if you can bear it I can’t so I
don’t you could supplement it if you
choose what dosage well that depends on
your weight and it seems that in any
case most supplements are going to more
than cover the amount of sulphoraphane
that’s described here translated from
the rat studies so in my case after
researching this episode I opted to
start taking 50 milligram 5 milligrams
of sulphoraphane per day I’m going to
see how that goes um I guess it’s fair
to say that I’m sufficiently concerned
about uh microplastics and nanoplastics
given that I’m 49 years old all my
biomarkers seem fine but hey I’m always
interested in doing something for my
health or to promote my health that is
if I can and it’s pretty clear to me
that if one’s thinking about liver
control detoxification both for sake of
offsetting or
removing bpas bps’s but also other
potentially toxic metabolites from
microplastics nanoplastics and other
environmental factors that taking 50
milligrams of sulphoraphane per day
perhaps can be beneficial so I don’t
think it’s necessary for everybody in
fact I think everybody should probably
be getting some cruciferous vegetables
in their diet anyway at least once a
week or a couple times a week so if
you’re not interested in supplementing
that would be the route to go if you are
interested in supplementing I’ll provide
a link to this particular location in
the examine.com agage so that you can
translate some of these dosages to your
potential sources of supplemental forms
of sulphoraphane the other way that
microplastics and nanoplastics can be
excreted from the body is in the bowel
and one way to potentially increase the
amount of microplastics and nanoplastics
bpas bps’s phalates and forever
chemicals those
pf’s from your body is to make sure that
you’re getting enough dietary fiber now
most people can do that simply by eating
a fair amount of fruits and vegetables
which I always make a point to do I also
ingest starches okay so I’m not pure
carnivore I things like rice like
oatmeal I like uh fresh pastas although
it’s mainly rice and oatmeal for me
these days in terms of starches plenty
of fruits and vegetables that’s
something I just really make it a point
to do why is fiber good at doing this
well it can bind lipophilic molecules
okay it can bind
molecules that are able to cross cell
membranes and earlier we were talking
about the fact that BPA and bps’s mimic
estrogen and combine to estrogen
receptors and potentially to Androgen
receptors as well keep in mind that one
of the reasons why those so-called
steroid hormone Pathways I know people
hear the word steroid and they think
performance-enhancing steroids but no
turns out that testosterone and estrogen
are both steroid hormones one of the
reasons those are interesting is that
because of their structure they’re able
to bind cell surface receptors and have
effects on those cells they are also
able to pass through okay the hormones
okay here I’m not talking about bpas and
bps’s but the hormones testosterone
estrogen can actually get to the nucleus
of cells and can control gene expression
these steroid hormones testosterone and
estrogen work in a very coordinated
fashion to create what we call secondary
sex characteristics which are the
characteristics of the external body and
brain changes and internal changes all
over the place right ovaries testes Etc
that are what underly what we call
puberty and that’s because these
molecules can actually control gene
expression so when we talk about these
molecules like bpas and BPS is impacting
these Pathways like estrogen and
androgen Pathways this is serious stuff
because what you’re doing is you’re
potentially activating or blocking
Pathways that are involved not just in
the function of those cells but actually
the genes that those particular cells
Express and this is particularly
concerning for any kind of hormone
dependent cancers right it’s perhaps not
surprising to you but based on what you
now know about how hormones work with
gene expression Etc that many tissues
that turn over cells a lot such as the
testes right producing sperm pretty much
throughout the lifespan the follicle and
eggs right breast tissue right these are
common sites of cancer okay there are
other cancers that can form of course in
other tissues like the pancreas and
brain Etc but tissues that turn over
quite a bit because of the involvement
of the cell cycle and because cancer is
among other things the disregulation the
cell cycle and an overproduction of
cells that we call
tumors those are Pathways that are
particularly vulnerable to endocrine or
hormone disruption and this is why
there’s additional concern about
microplastics and nanoplastics perhaps
increasing cancer rates in particular in
tissues like the ovary in particular the
testes in particular any tissue where
there’s a lot of cellular turnover so
the point here is that eating broccoli
eating cauliflower potentially
supplementing with sulphoraphane here
I’m summarizing a bit what I talked
about earlier avoiding drinking water
from plastic bottles maybe getting a
reverse osmosis filter avoiding those
diabolical canned soups I had no idea
about these canned soups or ensuring
that the canned soups that you’re eating
are safe in the ways that we discussed
earlier avoiding sea salts avoiding I’m
throwing a few other things in here that
I haven’t mentioned yet avoiding
non-stick pans trying to cook mainly
with cast iron or ceramic and making
sure that those are BPA BPS and past
free just look at the packaging do a
little bit of homework there and get
this one this is a really surprising one
or at least was surprising to me
carbonated water okay mineral Waters a
few years ago there was an analysis of
different popular forms of carbonate
water which is sold in glass containers
okay it turned out that Topo Chico which
I happened past tense happened to love
Topo Chico had
9.76 particles per trillion of these
pases these forever chemicals okay that
was an analysis done in 2020 perier 1.1
San pelo
0.31 so we’re comparing
9.76 versus 1.1 versus. 31 which tells
me I’m avoiding topoo I might even avoid
perer I’ll probably drink San pelegrino
I’m probably buy a perryer and drink a
perer every once in a while I’m not
crazy about carbonated water by the way
this was an analysis by consumer reports
and it caught some attention such that
the Coca-Cola company which makes Topo
Chico said that they were going to fixed
this problem and they claimed okay I
don’t know if they’ve done this all
right I don’t want to get the folks at
Coca-Cola angry with me Coca-Cola
claimed that by 2023 they were going to
cut the amount of these particles in
half but that would still make them 4.5
parts per trillion still much higher at
least four times higher than any of the
other brands so I have to be direct I’m
speaking from my own experience and
choices until I see data that Topo Chico
has reduced the amount of these foreign
contaminants to basically less than 0.31
I’m going with San peligrino or perer
okay I don’t tend to drink a lot of
mineral water but given that you’re
ordering it in the glass in a glass
container that is given that these
things are not particularly cheap right
and that you have choices you could
either decide to avoid carbonate water
altogether or if you’re going to be
smart about it you probably want to
avoid the ones that contain more of
these foreign contaminants because of
their ability to get lodged in different
tissues in your body so that was very
surprising to me that you would have
these forever chemicals in carbonated
water what it tells us is that the water
going into those products contains
either microplastics
nanoplastics Paces from other sources or
something and so I think that we should
all be aware of this if you’re going to
drink carbonate water probably go going
with a perer or S pelino would be better
than going with Topo Chico because even
though they’ve haved the amount of these
forever chemicals in there it’s still
quite High okay so I’ve mentioned some
todos to reduce your microplastic
nanoplastic BPA BPS and past exposure
such as ingesting cruciferous vegetables
potentially supplementing with Sil
forane trying to avoid drinking out of
plastic water bottles there a few other
things I’ll just list off here to keep
it relatively short
talked about making sure you’re getting
enough dietary
fiber I talked before about using a
glass or steel vessel and reverse
osmosis water using Himalayan salt
avoiding sea salt the other thing that
you can do oh and I mentioned using cast
iron and ceramic as opposed to non-stick
cookware whenever you can and if you’re
going to microwave food making sure that
you’re doing that on plates or in
containers that does not or do not
contain plastic of any kind even if it
says microwave safe the other thing is
to sweat okay we vastly underestimate or
downgrade the power of sweating sweating
is an incredible mechanism now I realize
that as soon as somebody says sweating
is a great way to remove toxins from the
body that a bunch of people out there
get really inflamed pun intended I’m not
saying that what I am saying is that
there are a number of different ways for
foreign products to leave the body
including urine feces but including
sweat okay so I’m not saying that’s
going to detox you completely that’s not
what I’m saying okay I don’t fall into
that camp however there are a number of
beneficial aspects to sweating and also
there are a number of beneficial aspects
to doing the things that make you sweat
so I’ve done entire episodes about
deliberate heat exposure so things like
sauna done anywhere from once a week to
four times a week pretty impressive data
in terms of reducing all cause mortality
improving cardiovascular function it’s
also for most people pretty Pleasant to
sit in a sauna if you don’t have access
to a sauna taking a hot bath not so hot
that you burn yourself but a hot bath
that also will activate some of these
same Pathways things like hot yoga
things like going out for a run in a
hoodie trying to get your body to sweat
pretty robustly at least once a week is
a good idea for all sorts of reasons
also just your ability to Thermo
regulate by the way for those of you
that don’t sweat much sweating is
actually something that you can get
better at that’s right you can get
better at sweating by what by sweating
by exposing yourself in safe ways to
heat and I talk about that in the
deliberate heat exposure episode we also
have a newsletter on deliberate heat
exposure I’ll put links to those in the
show note captions and those explain
safe ways uh to encourage sweating why
am I talking about this well sweating
may help remove some of the things that
are attached to microplastics and
nanoplastics that can act as endocrine
disruptors it’s very very unlikely that
the microplastics and nanoplastics would
actually be removed as whole particles
in sweat I think that that’s very
unlikely frankly what’s more likely is
that the microplastics and nanoplastics
aren’t really getting removed from or
broken down within our body at all
they’re getting lodged into these
different tissues but the stuff that’s
on them and in them is potentially
causing some of the biological harms
that we’ve talked about and so removing
those more robustly is what sweating is
about it’s what consuming cruciferous
vegetables is about and so on and so
forth so those are a few more todos the
other to don’ts or I should say don’ts
are things like avoiding consumption of
packaged food or food that’s packaged in
plastic now this is tough to do you know
I love berries for instance I love
blueberries I’m what you call a driveby
blueberry eater if there’s blueberries
in a bowl I just kind like sweep them up
like by the fist full so if they’re
blueberries on the counter you’re
probably not getting very many um I’m
getting most of
them I love blueberries but I noticed
that I was starting to accumulate and of
course I recycle those blueberry
containers that are those plastic
containers one way that you can avoid
plastic packaging is go to farmers
markets bring your own bags bring your
own baskets I love that the farmers
markets they have those cardboard
containers of course some of you may be
shouting wait but those are colored
green and the coloration is a problem
and they have the microfibers with the
true but probably better than plastic
containers that they use now in the
grocery store for pretty much every
fruit and vegetable okay so solution is
either farmers markets or trying to
bring your own bags to the grocery store
I know this is starting to sound kind of
you know hippie dippy but you know these
little things make a big difference over
time you’re reducing your plastic waste
you’re reducing the amount of plastic
exposure of the fruits and vegetables
you eat this can correspond to a real
difference in the number of
microplastics and nanoplastics and the
bad stuff that comes with them that you
ingest and again most of the time these
things are going to save you cost as
opposed to introduce new costs the other
don’ts that we haven’t talked so much
about are to reduce the number of
clothes that you purchase I know this
might seem like oh my God what where’s
this all going but it turns out that one
of the major sources of microplastics
and nanoplastics are the microfibers on
clothing that come off in washing
machines that then get distributed into
the oceans through the water or that get
Escape into the air there are a number
of ways that you can trap those they the
things like the guppy bag that you can I
love the name the guppy bag that you can
buy at pretty low cost you find those
easily online that will trap some of
that stuff there are filters that you
can put within specific washing machines
some places actually require this now
that capture those microfibers these
microfibers when I first heard about
them I thought oh goodness we’re really
talking about microfibers and clothing
well just I don’t know wear 100% cotton
clothing but then you find out because I
read this book this um scary book and it
is scary it does kind of bum you out
when you start reading this stuff that
when you read a poison like no other how
microplastics corrupted our planet and
our bodies you find out that so much of
the waste that exists in landfills is
clothing that people have discarded and
there was nothing wrong with that
clothing clothing has dyes it has little
microfibers the stuff gets into the
environment gets into the oceans here’s
the simple solution to all this it turns
out that we replace far more clothing
than we need to okay this is actually a
great relief to me because I love few
things more in terms of clothing anyway
the feeling of a t-shirt that I’ve worn
many many times and it’s really really
soft and kind of worn down that kind of
distressed look t-shirt even though that
might be fashionable to some people to
some people it’s not I love the feeling
of a really worn down soft t-shirt even
the ones that have a little bit of you
know sort of uh Jagged toothing along
the collar now some people might loath
that they only want the pristine t-shirt
that you know is super Crisp that’s not
me I I know I own a few of these black
button- down shirts and indeed the same
ones I use them over and over again I do
own a fair number of them but I use the
same ones over and over again and I
think that’s in keeping with this other
recommendation which this book a poison
like no other said could make a major
dent in the amount of microplastics and
nanoplastics that are out there in the
environment that we end up ingesting and
that the other animals on the planet who
are so very important end up ingesting
and potentially suffering from and
that’s to simply not buy or replace so
much of our clothing but to reuse our
clothing now the argument has been made
and they counter it in the book well
then you’re just going to wash the same
clothing over and over you’re going to
break down those microfibers and
introduce those dyes and things into the
ocean Etc into the air but it turns out
that when you reuse the same clothing
and wash it over and over again you
actually see a diminishment in the
amount of microfibers and the amount of
dyes and things that you extract from
those clothing over time okay so now in
some odd way we’re talking about
clothing purchases or non-p purchases in
this case on the hubman Lab podcast but
you know in researching this episode I
discovered that these are a major source
if not the major source of microplastic
and nanoplastic particles in the
environment and landfill Ocean Air Etc
so while none of us I believe none of us
are going to go out there and create a
tire that doesn’t degrade as quickly as
current tires right most of us don’t
have the capacity to do that let’s face
it we got to get around in vehicles all
those tires breaking down not a whole
lot we can do about that we’re inhaling
all that stuff but we can make the
decision to use the clothing that we’ve
got for longer periods of time is it
really necessary to keep buying more and
more clothes and replacing the old
clothes throwing out the old clothes or
even donating those old clothes who
knows I’m all for donating clothing
after you’re done with it but now I have
justification for just keeping the
t-shirts that I have making them softer
and softer and softer over time and I
should mention that of course when you
wear clothing that is shedding these
microfiber particles you’re ingesting or
rather you’re inhaling more typically
the microfibers and the microplastics
and the nanoplastics and all the bad
goodies that go with them you know as I
say that I think we need to be fair
about what that means and what it
doesn’t mean I personally just don’t see
myself going around and looking at
labels finding only 100% cotton with no
microfiber shedding uh no dyes Etc I
mean there are a lot of things that are
now introduced to even 100% cotton
clothing that make them a little bit
more water and stain resistant it’s very
very difficult to find such sources of
clothing right I know they’re out there
but they’re very difficult to find and
they’re quite costly in many cases if
you happen to know of some true lowcost
versions of those things please put
those in the comment section on YouTube
but I think we have to be realistic here
Plastics were introduced in the 1950s
they are
everywhere they are in our clothing they
are in tires they are in medical devices
they’re just everywhere the point of
this discussion today is not to try and
eliminate Plastics I don’t think that’s
reasonable I don’t even think that would
be useful relative to the incredibly
powerful use of Plastics in just about
every industry there’s always a
trade-off with these sorts of things and
I acknowledge that what I’m talking
about is trying to limmit your exposure
and trying to buffer yourself against
this
bioaccumulation in ways that can protect
your endocrine system protect your brain
protect your cardiovascular system
protect your liver protect the organs
and tissue systems of your body so that
you can Thrive as much as possible so
there are some other not todos or things
to avoid microwave popcorn turns out to
be a major source of these things
basically any bag or container can bag
or plastic that has a lining that
prevents oily stuff from staining it and
getting through such as microwave
popcorn very likely is a source or I
should say a rich source of
microplastics nanoplastics and endocrine
disruptors does that mean that if you
have some microwave popcorn every once
in a while that’s going to screw up your
estrogen or testosterone system and make
you infertile no I don’t believe that
these things are all a matter of dosage
exposure over time and so on toothpaste
and plastic tubing another rich source
of microplastics nanoplastics that
people ingest of course because you’re
putting in your mouth when I did the
oral health episode I talked about some
tooth tablets I’ve become quite fond of
these I have no Financial relationship
to the company that makes these but
these are tooth tablets that um include
something called hydroxy appetite which
is great for the remineralization of
teeth because it turns out your teeth
can fill in little cavities that start
to form and overall tooth Health it’s
also great for travel because first of
all these things come in a glass jar so
no plastic you take the tooth tablets
you just chew them up and then you brush
your teeth uh it’s great because you
don’t have to worry about how many
ounces is going through the uh you know
the screening process is the airport
because it’s not a a liquid it’s not a
paste it’s a tablet they’re super
convenient I love those we’ll probably
link to those in the show note captions
even though I have no relationship to
the company I’m just big fan of of that
sort of thing the convenience and the
fact that it’s housed in glass but as I
say all this stuff right avoiding
drinking out of plastic don’t turn over
your clothing so much wash your clothes
but don’t purchase and throw away
clothing too much or more than is
necessary avoiding sea salt these kinds
of things these are all just choices for
you in the buffet of options of ways to
reduce your microplastic nanoplastic
ingestion and
exposure and the bioaccumulation of
those things over time and to increase
in the case of things like Sul forane
and sweating Etc and to increase the
detoxification and removal of some of
the more harmful products attached to or
Within These microplastics and
nanoplastics right I certainly don’t
expect anyone including myself to start
living Life free of microplastics and
nanoplastics to do that you’d probably
have to leave planet Earth I know
certain people are developing plans to
enable us to do that even if we’re not
astronauts and frankly when you get out
to Mars or you get it into outer space
those microplastics and nanoplastics
based on everything I’ve learned and how
incredibly sneaky small and pervasive
they are well they’re probably in outer
space as well now the final thing I want
to touch on is the potential role of
microplastics nanoplastics bpas bps’s
and forever chem
on the developing brain this is an area
that I’m very familiar with because much
of my career I’ve focused on brain
development neural development and one
can find a lot of papers out there about
the potential neurotoxicity of micro and
nanoplastics certainly the established
neurotoxicity of microplastics and
nanoplastics in animal models and the
potential neurotoxicity of those things
in human tissues now of course because
this animal literature and some
correlative human literature have been
out there for a while the media and some
people in particular have become
concerned about and have mentioned the
potential role of microplastics
nanoplastics and the bad goodies that
attach to them or come from them in
potentially causing neurodevelopmental
disorders such as autism and ADHD I want
to be very clear I went into this
literature I read this review it’s a
quite nice review the plastic brain
neurotoxicity of
micro and
nanoplastics and sure there’s a lot of
animal literature showing for instance
that there’s a disruption in certain
enzymatic Pathways within neurons in
particular and this is the one that
intrigues me the most A disruption in
what’s called acetycholine esterase
aceto Coline is a neuromodulator
involved in neuroplasticity in attention
among other things levels of alertness a
number of things including control of
the so-call neuromuscular Junctions that
allow for us to move our limbs
acetylcholine esterase is involved in
the degradation the breakdown of
acetylcholine in the synapse so neurons
release acetycholine into the synaps
where it can have an effect on muscle or
it can have an effect on other neurons
if we’re talking about within the brain
and indeed there’s a fair amount of
evidence showing that microplastics and
nanoplastics are correlated with
reductions in or just changes in acolin
estras activity now it is true that
where acetycholine is released in the
brain it can impinge on dopamine
circuits that are involved reward
Pathways and movement but I want to be
clear people have taken some of those
findings translated them to the
correlative data in humans and have
started to link the presence of
microplastics and nanoplastics in their
words not mine in their words to
neurodevelopmental disorders such as
autism and ADHD and while there is some
evidence that some of the behavioral
components or cognitive components of
autism and
ADHD May in increase in line with
increases in microplastic or nanoplastic
exposure the data there are still in my
opinion very very weak so in my opinion
it’s far too early to conclude that
microplastics and nanoplastics have any
role and certainly not a causal role in
the development of autism or ADHD or
other neurodevelopmental disorders that
said the presence of microplastics and
nanoplastics in placenta and in that
first stool from babies which shows us
that those microplastics and nanop
Plastics are getting into the developing
fetus well that does I think raise level
of concern and it certainly should
motivate pregnant women as well as
people who have newborn kids or going to
have kids to look around their home
environment think about the things
they’re putting into their body or the
vessels they’re using to ingest liquids
to ingest foods and to start limiting
microplastic and nanoplastic exposure
certainly during but also perhaps before
pregnancy and after pregnancy when one
is
breastfeeding so
the point here is that we can’t draw a
direct relationship between
microplastics and nanoplastics and
neurodevelopmental disorders I don’t
think it would be appropriate at all to
do that however given that microplastics
and nanoplastics have these issues both
from their own breakdown their presence
right their own structural presence can
be a problem the chemicals within them
can be a problem the chemicals that
attach to them can be a problem
potentially I think learning to limit
our exposure throughout our lifespan
learning to reduce the bio accumulation
through detoxification and excretion
Pathways using the various approaches
that we talked about and certainly to
pay extra attention to those things
around the time of meaning before during
and after pregnancy is especially
important because we just don’t know all
the things that these chemicals and
these Plastics are doing but none of
them seem to be very good at least not
in terms of the ways that they impact
our brain and bodily tissues okay so
today we’ve talked a lot about
microplastics what they are where
they’re found how they get into our body
where they get lodged within our body
what they potentially do in our body
none of which is good some might be
innocuous some might be bad none of
which at least as far as I know is good
and some ways both through some todos
and some to avoids that we can increase
our excretion or our breakdown and
removal of the bad stuff on and in
microplastics and
nanoplastics and I realize that even
though we covered a lot of things we
also just scratched the surface for
instance we know that receipts are rich
sources of bpas okay so if you are
somebody who handles receipts a lot for
your job probably best to use nital
gloves okay not latex gloves but nital
gloves those are going to protect your
hands if you’re somebody who purchases
things maybe just say no thanks I’ll
take the electronic receipt or no
receipt okay however we need to be
reasonable here as well does this mean
that if you touch a receipt that you’re
going to screw up your testosterone or
estrogen no but you probably don’t want
to be rubbing those receipts and it’s
very clear that if you use sunscreen or
lotions of any kind on your hands you
handle receipts it can increase the
access of those bpas to your bloodstream
and if you’re somebody who handles
receipts a lot well then probably best
to use those nital gloves the point here
is that there are a lot of different
sources of these bpas bps’s PFS so-call
forever chemicals microplastics
nanoplastics I also would just encourage
you to do your research look at the cans
that you drink from ensure that they
don’t include bpas look at the different
things that you cook within your kitchen
try and cook from cast iron or ceramic
and if you don’t look at the other pans
and cans and things in your environment
and see what your likely exposure to
these bpas bps’s and forever chemicals
is and make choices accordingly that’s
what today’s episode and frankly this
podcast is about it’s about you being
informed and making the best choices for
your mental health and physical health
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