We all know that plastic is everywhere these days. We’ve had the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, but will history record that we’re now in the Plastic Age? Probably.
Is it any surprise then that we’re now discovering that plastic is in us? In fact, we’re riddled with it, literally.
Recent studies have shown that micro and nano scale plastic can be detected in post-mortem analysis of any body part you care to mention, such as your:
- Brain
- Liver
- Kidney
- Blood
- Bones
- Muscles
There are lots of different types of plastics, so which are the main culprits, and which are increasing?
By far the biggest proportion of plastic found in the body is polyethylene (PE) which is the plastic found in drinks bottles, chopping boards, cling film, and food packaging.
What many people don’t know is that canned food and drinks are also lined with a very thin plastic bag, and this bag is… made from polyethylene. So even canned drinks and food is actually wrapped in polyethylene.
How bad is the polyethylene problem? Well researchers have been looking into this and published their results this year, 2025:
Study: Bioaccumulation of Microplastics in Decedent Human Brains
This chart from that study, showing concentrations of plastics found in dead people, it’s the orange coloured part of the bar, i.e. more than 50% of all the plastic found was polyethylene, and 75% of the plastic found in the brain.
Another thing to note in that chart, which compares samples from 2016 and 2024, is that polypropylene (PP) proportions have risen significantly in the last 8 years in each of the 3 sample areas.
Polypropylene is also used in drinks bottles and food packaging, but also yogurt pots and hot drinks cups. You know that cheeky coffee you get from Starbucks… that comes in a convenient polypropylene lined disposable cup.
This diagram shows that the concentrations have increased dramatically over the last 8 years. Note the y-axis is a logarithmic scale, which means each horizontal section line is 10x more than the previous one. Showing that plastic in the brain has doubled in 8 years, and liver plastic has quadrupled in 8 years!
How much was found? Let’s do some simple maths:
- Median brain concentrations: 3,345µg/g = 3.345mg/g
- In English, that’s 3.345 milli grams (a thousandth of a gram) per gram of brain = 0.003345 grams
- Average brain weight is 1.3kg (more than a bag of sugar) = 1,300 grams of brain
- Total plastic = 0.003345 x 1,300 = 4.35 grams of plastic in a brain
That doesn’t sound much except when I tell you that plastic forks here weigh nearly half that at 2.3g.
Incredibly, that means there was enough plastic found in these people’s brains to make a whole plastic fork, and still have enough left over to make a 2g plastic knife, making a complete knife and fork set.
The researchers then got additional samples of brains, going back to 2000, and compared the samples from patients diagnosed with dementia (the purple circles) with those who died with normal brains.
You can clearly see, that ALL the dementia patients had higher amounts of dementia, about 5x as much as normal brains. But look at the y-axis, the average is about 25,000ug/g.
That’s 7x more than in the maths we did above. That’s 7 plastic forks and 7 plastic knives. Meaning
Just let that sink in… dementia patient brains, on average, contain enough plastic to make a knife and fork cutlery set enough to feed a family of 7!
It’s not just the brain, liver and kidney, microplastics have been found in your muscles and even your bones:
I’ve highlighted key points from the diagram above: 30-62 distinct particles of plastic per gram. Remember that a teaspoon of sugar is 5 grams. So each teaspoon of your muscle contains 150-300 noticeable pieces of plastic.
Honestly, these findings are mind blowing.
But I also mentioned plastic has been found in blood. This study found plastic concentrations in blood of 1.6µg/ml:
Study: Discovery and Quantification of Plastic Particle Pollution in Human Blood
Whilst these levels are much lower than in the first article, this still means that in each milli-litre of blood, i.e. a drop of blood, there is a detectable amount of plastic… in… every… drop…
Is it any wonder that with our blood carrying micro plastics to every corner of our body, these plastics accumulate in every part of our body? Even breast milk?
That’s right, this study found micro plastics in human breast milk, in concentrations of 1.6 µg/ml, exactly the same levels as in human blood. Here are some pictures:
Who knows what this is doing to baby? We know that there’s a link in mothers with high levels of the plastic bispenol (BPA) and autism in boys.
Given plastic’s ability to get everywhere, is it now a surprise to you to discover that microplastics were found in every sample taken in this study of post birth placentas:
Study: Quantitation and Identification of Microplastics Accumulation in Human Placental Specimens
Don’t think for a second I’m suggesting people shouldn’t breastfeed. Do you really think formula milk is any better from a plastic perspective? Of course, you guessed it, micro plastics are in baby formula too. However the concentrations are significantly lower than the micro plastics released by the bottles used to give the formula:
So where does that leave us?
Plastics are everywhere, in every crevice of our body and our babies’ bodies. Are micro plastics the cause for the rise in autism in our kids, and the rise in dementia in our old folk?
What can we do, other than to try to minimise as much as possible how our food and fluid intake contacts plastic?
Personally I’ve already ditched the plastic chopping boards, and have reduced to a minimum my use of plastic bottles, disposable or reusable. Going forward I’m going to be switching to non-plastic containers for food storage wherever possible.
We are indeed living in the plastic age. Good luck out there!
