Microplastics can stick in human airways, new study finds
CTV
A new study from an international group of researchers has found that microplastics can stick in our respiratory system, posing potentially serious health risks.
A new study from an international group of researchers has found that microplastics can stick in our respiratory system, posing potentially serious health risks.
According to the researchers, microplastics, which are small fragments resulting from the breakdown of plastic items of industrial waste, often contain harmful pollutants.
In a study, researchers say that humans may unknowingly breathe in approximately 16.2 bits of microplastic per hour. This amount is equivalent to the size of a credit card over the course of a week.
Published in the Journal Physics of Fluids on Tuesday, the authors say this is the first study to analyze the microplastic transport within the upper lung airways.
Researchers from the University of Technology Sydney, Western Sydney University, Urmia University, Islamic Azad University, the University of Comilla, and the Queensland University of Technology used a computational fluid dynamics model to analyze how microplastics move and accumulate in the upper airway.
“Millions of tons of these microplastic particles have been found in water, air, and soil. Global microplastic production is surging, and the density of microplastics in the air is increasing significantly,” Mohammad S. Islam, one of the study authors, explained in a news release. “For the first time, in 2022, studies found microplastics deep in human airways, which raises the concern of serious respiratory health hazards.”
For this study, the team studied the movement of microplastics of different shapes and sizes during slow and fast breathing. They found that these microplastics tended to gather in specific areas called hot spots in the nose and back of the throat (oropharynx).
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