Microplastic might be good for us for all we know, in still going to avoid them but it’s something to think about we don’t have any real idea of what the effect of them is.
We have some very limited ideas from correlation and limited lab testing that allows us to say easy things like putting junk in vital veins is bad (the nature article) but that’s only a fraction of the types of microplastic and possible interactions - we know almost nothing about most of what’s happening.
And to be clear I said they might be good for us as hyperbole, it’s of course possible but what’s far more likely is a myriad of long lasting health effects causing serious damage in obscure and complex ways.
In a century they might be saying ‘those plastic brain gen alpha caused so many problems’ just as how it’s common to hear people talk about lead brain boomers… or maybe ‘wow crazy micro plastic gave us superpowers, that was lucky’
Makes me genuinely wonder… I’ve donated blood for like 15 times now – does that make my current blood less saturated with microplastics than if I hadn’t?
Probably not. Unless they build up in the body somewhere, the amount of microplastics in your blood is determined by how many you consume via inhaled dust, food, and drink compared with how many you flush put via urine and/or fecal material.
If they do build up in the body somewhere, it probably isn’t the blood, because blood is already filtered regularly.
I was thinking that a kidney dialysis machine might be able to filter out that stuff from your blood. I think the way those work is your blood goes out a tube into the machine and it filters it before sending it back to you. So you’d need filters in there that are fine enough to catch the microplastics.
Correct. If there are actually micro plastics in your blood, the plastic is likely relatively small compared to a blood cell. Otherwise we would be witnessing a lot more issues with stroke/heart attacks. Any kind of filter small enough to filter out something that small would also filter out blood cells.
Could they even filter microplastics without just getting rid of all of the red blood cells? If they were big enough to be filtered without catching blood cells we would probably be seeing way more people getting actively and catasteophically screwed by them.
The researchers couldn’t give a precise breakdown of the particle sizes due to the limitations of the testing methods. It’s safe to presume, however, that smaller particles closer to the 700 nanometer limit of the analysis would be easier for the body to take in than larger particles exceeding 100 micrometers.
And red blood cells are 6.2–8.2μm. So I wonder if some kind of sieve could filter anything smaller than 5μm or so. Then again, there’s probably a bunch of other stuff in there as well, like white blood cells.
It’s too bad that they’re in the same range as important things…
A lower amount of blood to my brain might help stop the speed of a downward spiral. That or I could get diagnosed with ghosts and prescribed cocaine. Old medicine truly worked wonders.
Not OP, but apparently they’re useful for when you want a continuous, slow drain of blood. The ones they breed for hospitals don’t carry disease, so you can just kinda plonk it onto the spot that you want blood out of, and replace it when it gets full
Amputation sites I think? The suction attracts blood flow to the area and supports healing/retention of blood vessels… I think. Neither one of us clearly can be bothered googling but that’s what I recall…
Maggot therapy involves the use of maggots of the green-bottle fly, which are introduced into a wound to remove necrotic, sloughy and/or infected tissue. Maggots can also be used to maintain a clean wound after debridement if a particular wound is considered prone to re-sloughing.
Doctors and tissue viability specialists who have found that maggots are able to cleanse wounds much more rapidly than conventional dressings have reintroduced the technique into modern medicine.
They physically feed on dead tissue and release special chemicals into the wound that break down dead tissue into a liquid form that the maggot can easily remove and digest. The feeding maggot also takes up bacteria, during this process, which are then destroyed within their gut. It is an effective process that the larvae can often clean a wound within a few days.
Most people are unaware of the maggots presence, although a small number of patients claim that they can feel the maggots moving but only describe this as a tickling sensation
Some other good FAQs:
Will Maggots bury into healthy tissue?
The maggots used in wound management will not attack or bury into healthy tissue, they only remove dead tissue.
Will the maggots multiply in my wound?
Only adult flies can lay eggs, so the maggots cannot reproduce or multiply within the wound.
**Where do the maggots come from?**Maggots are produced in a special unit by highly trained staff at Biomonde, a company with many years of experience in wound management.
For skin grafts after burns; the leeches’ saliva has anticoagulants that helps blood flow through the microvasculature (tiny blood vessels) of the area. This helps promote growth of new blood vessels, as well as improve the health of the current blood vessels in the area.
TLDR: Helps tiny blood vessels in skin grafts (and other procedures), reduces failure of said skin grafts
Others have already mentioned limb reattachment and anticoagulants, but if you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend a book called Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures. Leeches, mosquitoes, bedbugs, and vampire bats are fascinating!
It also works on forever chemicals. They studied levels of PFAS in the blood of firefighters (who are commonly exposed to high levels in the foam they use), and found a clear difference between those that regularly donated blood and those who didn’t
That should depend on how the chemicals accumulate though. If all the plastic ends up in your blood and never gets naturally filtered out, it could make sense. Maybe it builds up in your fat/muscles instead though, or gets filtered over time and the amount in your system is the same as the amount in what you have recently eaten, idk
It isn’t. Blood donation reduces PFASs and iron buildup (too much iron in the blood is bad). And leeches are used in certain procedures, although I haven’t heard of them being used to remove microplastics (yet).
No because you’re making blood from nutrients with microplastics mixed in. That’s how it would hypothetically accumulate there in the first place. If it were being filtered out of the blood by another organ then I could see a case for scraping/removal but if it’s the blood then it’s coming directly from your food and drink and will be the same ratio even after bloodletting and/or regeneration.
Let’s say you keep dripping slightly muddy water into a bucket. Over time, the mud will settle and accumulate in the bucket, while the clearer water will overflow. Now suppose you cut a slit at the base of the bucket. Now the mud will flow out through it and the water in the bucket will become less muddy, even though new muddy water is still dripping in. Here the bucket is your bloodstream, the slightly muddy water is your food, and the mud is microplastic.
The problem is that things like microplastics cannot be removed easily. (This is called bioaccumulation.) But if you bleed and lose some blood, the new blood will take time to accumulate.
The blood supplies to and through every single organ the vast majority of which are much more likely to catch and accumulate particles than the stream or vessels themselves.
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