Research has revealed another means by which plastic is getting into your blood and it’s something many households use on a regular basis.
Microplastics pose an environmental and health concern, and recent reports indicate that washing plastic containers in the dishwasher may contribute to these small pollutants getting into your blood. Research carried out by the University of Queensland has found a shocking link between microplastic pollution and dishwashing plastic containers, according to their report posted on Phys.Org.
Because of the high temperatures and abrasive cleaning processes of dishwashers, plastic kitchenware sheds
microplastics, which can end up in drinking water, food and yep you guessed it, your blood!
The study tested a full dishwasher load filled with everyday plastic kitchen utensils and containers that are most commonly used, and found that just one cycle released “about 920,000 micro and nano particles into wastewater,” according to ACS ES&T Water. This amounts to 33 million particles released per household every year.
So what are microplastics and why should we be concerned?
Microplastics are flakes of plastic smaller than 5 millimeters in length. Plastics can’t biodegrade, they only break down into smaller and smaller pieces, which are difficult to get rid of. They are incredibly pervasive, entering oceans, soil, animals, and human bodies. Animals and humans can consume the particles that end up in water and food sources, and microplastics can even be inhaled and are now found in our blood.
A recent New England Journal of Medicine study linked heart attacks and strokes to microplastic pollution.
Luckily, the release of microplastics in dishwashing machines is quite minor when compared to other sources of plastic pollution in our environment. If the culprit is a dishwasher the microplastics can still be curbed by using a filter to trap debris.
Even seemingly harmless everyday actions can have a cumulative effect on the environment and more notably on our health.
It’s certainly possible to develop plastics that are more resistant to degradation but removing the microplastics before they can enter the environment or your body is better than implementing costly measures after the microplastics have already been released.
If you’re trying to reduce the dangers posed by using plastic utensils an easy thing to do is to hand wash plastic items at a lower temperature rather than dishwashing them or better yet, replace them with utensils made from wood, glass, stainless steel or ceramic.
Surprisingly, another common source of microplastics is our clothing. Human-made fibers like nylon and polyester can shed every time we wash our clothes or perspire heavily, so choosing natural fibers, such as cotton and linen, is a better alternative.
Installing or frequently cleaning the filter on your washing machine is another great way of reducing the microplastics in the rinse cycle instead of having them re-attached to your clothing and wearing them all over again.
The presence of plastics in our environment is an increasingly significant concern, particularly given recent discoveries of their presence in human blood. And it doesn’t stop there! More and more studies are now attributing an ever-growing list of health challenges resulting from the presence of plastics in the blood.
What can be done?! I’m so very, very glad you asked! Our office now offers a simple blood test that you can take at home, that will reveal the amounts of plastics and forever-chemicals that you may be harboring in your blood. Who should take this test? Quite honestly….everyone, as we’re all living in and subject to, the same environment.
After the results are received, we create a program, after which we do a re-test of your blood. Our programs have produced as much as a 90% reduction rate of the plastics in those we’ve tested, myself included! If you’re interested, whether you’re one of our current patients/clients or not, just contact our office and we’ll take it from there! We at ProActive are relentlessly committed to being and offering the best to you, so that you may enjoy, “the best performance of your life!”
God bless,
DrB
