Microplastics have made their way into penises. What can we do to avoid them?
Microplastics have infiltrated our bodies, including the brain, blood, organs and even penises. What are the potential health risks? And how can we avoid them?
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00:00So a new study found the first evidence of microplastics actually inside of
00:05penis tissue, and scientists think that could be impacting male fertility.
00:11In reality, microplastics are all over our bodies. They've already been found in
00:15blood and in sperm, and so it makes sense that they would also be in penises, but
00:21what are they doing there and how bad is it for our health? I'm Hilary Brick and I
00:27cover health at Business Insider. Microplastics were found in a deep
00:33tissue inside the penis called the corpus spongiosum, and the surgeon tells
00:39me this is largely what's responsible for erections, so he's wondering is there
00:43some sort of connection between these plastics and the dysfunction. Broadly
00:48speaking, the definition of a microplastic is basically any piece of
00:53plastic that's less than five millimeters wide, so this can mean just
00:58about anything can become a microplastic or be a microplastic. So there were two
01:04types of plastic that were the most common that the researchers found in
01:07this study, and those were PET, which is used in a lot of food packaging, and
01:11polypropylene, which is used to make bottle caps like water bottle caps.
01:16These microplastics are not something you're gonna see with the naked eye.
01:20They're between 20 and 500 micrometers wide, so that's like maybe one or two
01:27hairs. The sample size for this study was pretty small. It was done on six men all
01:33living in Miami and all struggling with erectile dysfunction, and five of the men
01:38had microplastic in their penises, but interestingly one did not. He's an older
01:44guy, a Cuban guy who lives in Miami, and you know he doesn't do that much takeout.
01:50He kind of lives a traditional life. He doesn't really use plastic water bottles
01:55that much, kind of drinks from a cup and eats from a plate. It seems kind of
01:59counterintuitive that an older person would have less plastic in their body
02:03because they've had more time to swallow plastic, but this is a trend other
02:08researchers have also found, so there's something perhaps about our modern way
02:13of living that is contributing to the fact that there's more microplastic in
02:17our bodies. The two main ways that scientists think that we are getting
02:23microplastics inside of us are either by swallowing them or inhaling them, so
02:28either from the air or from eating, drinking something. So it goes into your
02:33digestive tract and then it travels down into your gut, and then once it's in
02:38your gut it gets processed and it can enter the bloodstream, and that's when it
02:43can just really go just about anywhere in your body, including in testicles, not
02:48just penises, but also semen, blood, the gut, the brain. It's a little bit
02:56difficult to quantify how much microplastic is in our body, but one
02:59recent study suggested our intake of microplastics has increased six-fold
03:04since 1990. This is a trend that's expected to only continue. Our global
03:08consumption of plastic is expected to triple by 2060. So it's not like you can
03:15identify one source of microplastics. They really are everywhere in everything.
03:20Microplastics are present in foods we eat and drinks we consume, so if you go
03:26out for a to-go coffee, there's a little plastic film inside your cup. If you eat
03:32from a takeout container, it's probably coated with a shiny coating. The slice of
03:37pizza comes on a piece of paper that might have some little microplastics
03:41that you eat in your pizza. If you drink water, that can also have microplastics
03:47in it, either from the bottle cap, it might pop off and get in there. Another
03:51place that microplastics come from is the clothes we wear and when we do
03:55laundry. So these little microfibers, all these sort of new and often improved
04:02fabrics that can stretch and do various things, when they get washed, those
04:06microfibers will come out of them. There's a lot of microplastic in the
04:10air we breathe as well. It's incorporated into the household dust. It's really kind
04:15of impossible to act like we could ever get away from microplastics. There are so
04:21many different chemicals inside of microplastics. There's like more than
04:2613,000, but I will mention a few of the most common. One of them is BPA or
04:32bisphenol A. BPA is one of these endocrine disrupting chemicals that can
04:38confuse our hormones and scientists have shown that it can lead to more cancer or
04:44more obesity, hyperactivity, decreased immunity and ability to fight off
04:50infections. So it's one of these hormone disrupting chemicals that can impact the
04:56way our body functions. BPA was phased out of baby bottles a few years ago in
05:022013 and it's been increasingly phased out of the linings of cans. The FDA says
05:08that the level of BPA we're exposed to in things like food packaging is safe,
05:14but the research on this is still in its infancy. Another chemical inside
05:19microplastics is PFAS. You might have heard of these called forever chemicals.
05:24PFAS are a broad class of chemicals that are used in all kinds of things from
05:30raincoats to Teflon to firefighting foam and food packaging. PFAS are useful
05:37because they repel water and so you can waterproof things or make things more
05:42leak proof or nonstick and while they're really good at resisting grease and fire
05:47and rain, they are also really good at sticking around forever. That's why
05:52they're called forever chemicals and they are also endocrine disruptors so
05:56they mess with the normal functioning of our hormones and can cause some health
06:01problems. They have been linked with lower birth rates, lowered immunity, some
06:06obesity in children and also cancers including testicular cancer. Another type
06:11of chemical is called phthalates and these are really flexible pliable
06:16plastics. Independent experts are concerned about phthalates because
06:19there's evidence they can influence reproductive development leading to more
06:24allergies, issues with development like more cases of ADHD, lower IQs, impacting
06:30brain development but also specifically for men that it might be tied to lower
06:35testosterone and by having an anti-androgenic effect on the body.
06:39Another plastic is PET. This is the stuff that a lot of bottles and bottle caps
06:45are made from. There's concerns that that when it gets really hot like above a
06:50hundred degrees can leach out some toxic chemicals, that there could be harmful
06:55effects over time leaching out of those bottles and bottle caps. The bottom line
07:00is whatever kind of plastic you're using it probably has some kind of chemical in
07:04it that has some kind of impact on your hormones and your health. But there are a
07:10few things you can do to avoid microplastics. I've interviewed a lot of
07:13experts about microplastics over the years and the one thing that everyone
07:18says is do not microwave your plastic. That's because when the plastic heats up
07:25it gives all those chemicals and potentially toxic things a chance to
07:29leach out into the food you're eating or the thing you're drinking. My second tip
07:34for avoiding microplastics is to try to avoid plastic takeout containers, plastic
07:40water bottles and to go cups when you can. Just getting away from those and
07:45cooking more at home when you can is really one of the best ways to avoid
07:49microplastic in your food. The third tip that I talked to experts about is to
07:54vacuum regularly, ventilate your house because a lot of microplastic gets into
08:00the dust in our house and so if your house is less dusty, less chance for you
08:05to be inhaling microplastics. Some of the scientists I talked to are most
08:10concerned about some of the skincare that we use, all of those artificial
08:14scents and fragrances that are in there can have a lot of phthalates in them so
08:18they recommend trying to avoid super scented things and trying to pick out
08:23more natural fibers when you can and when the price is agreeable because a
08:28lot of those synthetic materials that we wear have a lot of plastic chemicals in
08:33them. This last tip is one that pretty much any health expert will tell you for
08:39anything and it's wash your hands before you eat. Getting the germs and the
08:44microplastics off your hands will help keep more of them out of your body. These
08:49plastics aren't just passing through us and you know going out the other end
08:53they might be causing some damage while they're inside. One of the leading
08:59microplastics researchers Tracy Woodruff at the University of California San
09:04Francisco told me that she really feels like we're at an inflection point with
09:08microplastics where we're starting to learn more and more about them where
09:11they are and what they're doing in our bodies and she feels like this should
09:15really be a rallying moment for people to and regulators to step up and start
09:20to regulate the plastic industry much in the way that cigarettes were regulated
09:24in the 1960s.