Scientists have found microplastics in human breast milk for the first time, and further research is needed to identify potential health risks as infants are highly susceptible to chemical contaminants.
Researchers at the Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy, collected breast milk samples from 34 women, all of whom had just given birth a week earlier and were in good health, and microplastics were detected in 75 percent of the samples, according to the study published in the British chemistry journal POLYMER.
So what are microplastics? Microplastics are plastic particles less than 5 mm in size, and they may have a variety of sources, including cosmetics, detergents, packaging, and even synthetic fibers on clothing. Because they are present in all bodies of water today, including bottled and tap water, and fish are consuming them, they are part of our food supply.
Microplastics enter the body mainly through ingestion, inhalation and dermal contact. Once internalized, microplastics can cross cell membranes and translocate to different body sites, triggering specific cellular mechanisms. The most abundant microplastics consist of polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride and polypropylene, ranging in size from 2 to 12 µm.
Previous studies have shown that bottle-fed infants may swallow millions of microplastics per day, and that the concentration of microplastics in infant feces is 10 times that of adults, "Furthermore, we have only seen the tip of the microplastic iceberg, and smaller nanoplastics may be more prevalent and toxic, but it is not yet possible to analyze nanoplastics in complex matrices, such as breast milk. "
