Microplastics In Your Body

Imagine going in for surgery and the doctor finds tiny pieces of plastic inside your arteries. That sounds like science fiction, but the research world keeps reporting microplastics in blood, lungs, placentas, and even brain tissue. We want to know the same thing you do: how worried should we be, and what can we actually do about it?

We break down what microplastics are, how larger plastics fragment into microplastics and even smaller nanoplastics, and the everyday sources that quietly drive exposure: plastic water bottles, takeout containers, synthetic clothing, carpets, dust, and more. We also talk honestly about the current state of the science. Finding microplastics in the body is real; proving exactly how much harm they cause, at what dose, and which particle types are most dangerous is still being worked out. We walk through the leading concerns researchers are studying including chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, hormone disruption, cardiovascular risk, immune effects, and fertility correlations, while keeping the line clear between correlation and causation.

Then we get practical. We share 10 simple ways to reduce microplastics exposure without panic or perfection: stop microwaving plastic, switch to glass food containers, drink filtered water, cut back on bottled water, vacuum often with a HEPA filter, wash new clothes, choose more whole foods with less packaging, replace scratched plastic cutting boards, and ventilate your home. We also debunk common myths and put microplastics in context with the bigger foundations of health like sleep, stress, movement, and nutrition.

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Transcript

Plastic Inside Us Reality Check

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Imagine going in for surgery, and the doctor finds tiny pieces of plastic inside of your arteries. Or researchers discovering plastic particles in human brains, placentas, lungs, blood, and even reproductive tissue. Sounds like science fiction, but it is happening. Every week, new headlines warn us that plastics are everywhere. The question is, how worried should we be? Today we're separating hype from science. We'll explain what microplastics are, how they get into your body, what researchers actually know, what they don't know, and most importantly, what simple changes can reduce your exposure without turning your life upside down. Welcome to another episode of Living a Full Life. I'm Dr. Enrico Dolcecori, and we are diving into microplastics. And I'm going to spend the next few weeks on toxicity. I just came back from a wonderful trip from Italy for two weeks with my family. We did uh Rome, Naples, Florence, Venice, and uh I had a lot of time to think. I didn't record anything, I didn't bring my computers, I didn't on purpose. I even got a separate SIM card so I wouldn't get texts uh on purpose to just detach. And it was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful. But on that plane ride back, you start to think about the differences between Europe and the United States, and uh they both have their pros and cons, but it came to toxicity and how the European Union takes toxicity very seriously with their foods, most importantly, what goes on them, how they pesticides, uh herbicides, sprays, farm, raise organics, uh, just food in general. It was just healthier, it was better. Uh, people say you can go there and eat all the gluten you want and feel better. No, it's not true. You can't eat a bunch of wheat and gluten if you're gluten intolerant. If you go to Italy, it's still, anyways. Uh, so but plastics came through my mind. I'm like, man, all this, all this stuff that's around us, what do we do? What do we do? This always comes up. You you can't do much about the environment. When you step outside and you breathe in the air, it's the air. You have no choice. You need to breathe and you need to survive. If it's polluted, it's polluted. You really don't have much choice in that. So we only have so much choices. But when we do and we can control our environment, this is where we have an advantage when it comes to our overall health. And that's what today is all about. What are microplastics? Plastics, uh, plastic doesn't disappear after you make it, it simply breaks into smaller pieces. Eventually, those pieces become microplastics smaller than five millimeters. Nanoplastics that are so tiny they may enter cells. Uh, these sources

What Microplastics Actually Are

SPEAKER_00 3:05

come from plastic water bottles, food packaging, synthetic clothing, tires, carpets, paints, cosmetics, tea bags, disposable cups, plastic cutting boards, straws, and the list just goes on. There are now estimated to be trillions of plastic particles circulating through the environment from the deepest oceans to the Arctic snow. It's everywhere. The scary part isn't that plastic is everywhere, it's that it eventually ends up inside of us. So, how does this plastic get inside of us? Well, if you eat it, of course, that makes sense. And that's how it's getting in. Processed foods, seafood, because it's in the fish, salt, plastic food containers, takeout packaging, drinking uh through tap water, bottled water. Researchers suggest bottled water can contain substantially more

How They Get Into You

SPEAKER_00 3:57

plastic particles than many tap water sources, depending on the bottle and testing methods. When we were walking around Rome, there are fountains with free water. And of course, as an American, you're like, oh, I'm not drinking that. It's gotta be dirty. It's actually not, it's perfectly safe, it's treated. Um, and you can drink it's better than most of the tap water in most municipalities in the United States. So it's relatively clean. That's amazing. And I'm from Calgary, Alberta, too, and they rank number one or number two in the world for municipality water drinking from the tap being one of the cleanest in the world. Still not perfect because it's still municipality water, but compared to other cities, it is one of the best in the world. I think Frankfurt or something like that competes with them all the time. Breathing. So we got eating, drinking, breathing, dust, carpet fiber, synthetic clothing, vehicle tire particles. Indoor air often contains microplastic fibers that settle in household dust. Most people think food is the biggest source. It might actually be the air inside of your home. But what does the research actually say? This was just to get you thinking. But what does the research say? We need to separate what scientists know from what they're still investigating. So all these topics that are coming out in media are still what they're investigating. So coming with conclusions is a little too abrupt and too early. We have to go through what we know. Researchers have identified microplastics in blood, brain tissue, placenta,

What Research Knows So Far

SPEAKER_00 5:25

lungs, liver, kidneys, arteries, testicular tissue, and breast milk. Microplastics may contribute to chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, hormone disruption, cardiovascular disease, fertility issues, immune dysfunction. Many of these findings show association, not proof that microplastics directly cause disease. Scientists are actively studying how much exposure is harmful and which particles pose the greatest risk. Out of Europe right now, there is heavy directly causing fertility issues worldwide. They are now deeply diving into research into that, saying yes, because of the content in there and the function of reproductive organs in both female and male because of the plastics, the one the people that are being tested with less microplastic per per um not per capita, but per uh molecule in the body in those particular organs are have better fertility rates than the ones that have higher microplastics. So there is a correlation, doesn't mean it's causation. However, that's where we're at. So fertility is there, oxidative stress, inflammation. We're studying all that, but it can't be ignored. Something's going on, and that's where we need to be like, oh, okay, I need to be aware for my own health and my family's health. And this is why it matters more than you think. Health isn't usually one giant thing that we like to point the finger at. It's never that easy. It's death by a thousand paper cuts. And we're just trying to minimize the amount of paper cuts. The cumulative burden of all this is the negative

The Cumulative Health Tornado

SPEAKER_00 7:12

tornado that happens, a negative feedback loop that happens, poor sleep, stress, ultra-processed foods, alcohol, lack of exercise, environmental toxins. That's what we're talking about today, microplastics, then the inflammation, and then the increase in disease risk. That's the tornado that we get caught in. And it's part of the tornado. Just like in a tornado, the barns get picked up, wood piles get picked up, trash gets picked up, plastic bags get picked up, maybe a cow, uh, all this stuff gets picked up in the tornado. And those are all parts of the tornado, the debris that's in there, and microplastics and environmental toxins, and lack of exercise and poor sleep. That's all the stuff in the tornado. It creates the perfect storm. And no single factor in that tornado causes illness for most people. It's cumulative stress over time. As that tornado rips through the town, that's the cumulative stress. This ties perfectly into what we do in functional medicine and chiropractic, and we'll get back to that. Here are 10 easy ways that you can reduce your exposure to microplastics. Number one, stop microwaving plastic. Stop microwaving altogether just because of the frequency of the heat in there. But more importantly, no plastic containers in there. Heat speeds the release of chemicals in particles, especially at that high heat in the microwave. So using porcelain,

Ten Simple Ways To Reduce Exposure

SPEAKER_00 8:42

ceramic, glass, your best bet. Uh, plastic doesn't like temperature dysregulation. It likes to be at room temperature and that's it. That's how it's made. Once it gets too cold or too hot, it deforms. And it's in its deformity where it loses its strength and its binding. And that's where it breaks into microplastic. Use glass food containers for everything storage in the refrigerator. They're simple, they're cheap, they last forever unless you break them. Uh, drink filtered water. We have to filter the water. Even a reverse carbon uh filter that's in there then just runs through a carbon filter, is as simple as it can be. It removes 99.9% of all microplastics. Then, if you do a couple different filters in there, you can remove 99.9% of everything, even viruses and bacteria out of your water as well. So drink filtered water, activated carbon or reverse osmosis systems can reduce many contaminants through effectiveness for microplastics and varies by filter design too. Reduce bottled water. Wow. When we were in Europe, we had to drink a lot of bottled water just because we were on the go as tourists. But I'm like, man, we we crushed a lot of bottled water. That's that's a lot. That's not good for us, it's not good for the environment. Um, use reusable containers, glass, um, stainless steel, those types of things. Vacuum, vacuum your home often. Microplastics settle with dust on ledges, countertops, and floors. So by vacuuming more often, you actually get that all removed from most of it removed from your home on a regular basis, which is good. Uh, use a HEPA filter in your vacuums. And most of them do have this. If you have any type of uh commercial vacuum, it's got to help a filter in it that filters that out so it doesn't get pushed back through the air uh into your home, it gets caught in the uh dustbin. Wash all your new clothes. That's where a lot of the microplastics are in packaging. Uh, with the creation of the clothes in the factory, tons of microplastics, then they package it in a plastic bag and then they ship it off. It's contained in there. When you get new clothes, wash them immediately. Uh, choose more whole foods, less packaging, less processing. Avoid scratched plastic cutting boards. Consider wood or bamboo. So if you have these plastic boards, every time you're cutting into them, you're creating microplastics. So switch to wood, uh, ventilate your home. Use air, uh fresh air reduces airborne particle buildup. So having that circulating often is a great idea as well. And don't obsess, you can go crazy with this stuff and uh all the toxins that are around us. So just make it a little bit better, make everything a little bit better, reduce the microplastic exposure, reduce the pollutant exposure, reduce the VOCs, the volatile uh chemicals uh from perfume. You know, you take all these things if you listen to the podcasts, and if you just improve everything by like 5%, and you did 10 of those things, you just improved your environment by 50% because you changed 10 little things by 5%. You just got rid of the plastic cutting boards. That's all you did. We switched to wood. Huge win right there. You reduced your usage of bottled water, or you switched your plastic containers to stainless steel or something else. That's way better. But you know me, the myths, the myths that are out there and the misinformation that's out there. Let's let's kind of do a rapid fire with this stuff. You're doomed. The world is polluted, you're gonna die. That's a myth. Your body has natural elimination pathways, and reducing exposure is still worth your while. Your body's always filtering

Microplastics Myths Rapid Fire

SPEAKER_00 12:34

out toxins. It always has since the beginning of time. It always has done this. So we have the liver, we have the lymphatic system, we have uh the spleen, we have the appendix. We got tons of organs in there that help detox the body from that. But by minimizing the exposure, you minimize the stress on the body. So false, you're not duped. Organic food solves everything. Myth. Packaging and processing still matter. A lot of the organic foods, they may be harvested organic, but once they're thrown on a truck, they're sprayed with a pesticide to avoid the flies and horse flies and other things to attack it on the transport to the warehouse. What's the point of spending four months growing the produce and then throwing it onto your truck and spraying the truck with a pesticide to produce, you know, to offset the bugs that may get into it on the transport to the warehouse? I mean, it's just a weird, it's a weird, weird world we live in. But um, but organics, no, it doesn't solve all the problems. We got to think about how it's packaged. I have to throw away everything plastic. Well, no, replace items gradually as they wear out rather than creating unnecessary waste. Your cutting boards, you've had them for a couple of years. You're like, you know what? After this podcast, next time I'm at Sam's Club or wherever I shop, I'm gonna go look at their cutting boards and see if they have uh bamboo or wood or something different, different material. And if they are, wait till they go on sale, pick them up and replace them, you know, one at a time. This is the only toxin I should worry about: microplastics. It's it's the end all be all of everything that is gonna doom humanity. Absolutely not. Sleep, exercise, stress, nutrition, smoking, air quality, alcohol, these have more weight. These often have a much larger impact on our health and obsessing over every little possible toxin that's out there. And that's what's online and on social media is they pick one thing and they run with it. They pick one thing and they run with it. It's gonna be this. You're eating this, and that's why you're dying. And you're glyphosphate and then microplastics. And no, we have to stick to the foundation of health principles, and that is sleep, exercise, minimizing stress, improving nutrition, and minimizing toxins. The goal isn't to eliminate toxin, period. That's impossible. The goal is to reduce the unnecessary ones. That's what I'm trying to do for you. Just clean up life a little bit, make it a little bit easier for you, and make it make more sense. Health isn't built in one miracle supplement or one perfect diet. It's built by making hundreds of small decisions that lower stress on your body over time. Plastic is just one piece of that puzzle. So I challenge you after listening to this podcast this week, pick just one thing, switch to a reusable water bottle, stop microwaving food and plastic, or replace an old plastic cutting board. Small changes, repeated consistency often have the biggest impact over the long run when it comes to our health. And that's what uh I got back from all that toxicity. We're gonna get into food next week and let's talk about glyphosate. This was a big thing, and I learned a lot uh being there because I was just reading up on it. Um, you know, these things, oh, Italy, you can eat all the wheat, you can eat all this stuff because they don't spray their stuff. Italy imports a billion dollars a year worth of wheat from the United States. So we have to talk about something different when it comes to that. And uh we'll get into some more toxins that are quite common here. And the the disadvantages of being in the US

Food Rules And EU Vs US

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is the lax food regulations through the FDA. We're allowed to use a lot more chemicals in our food than anywhere else in the world, and that's a problem. So now what you have to do is be aware of those chemicals. And it's not a list of a thousand different ones, there's probably 10 that I think you should really know and we should move forward with um over the next week or two on the podcast. Short, sweet podcasts for you to digest and move on with your life and um move forward. So if you've been talking about microplastics or you just had this come up, microplastics, because it's popular in social media right now, share this podcast. Uh, leave a comment, leave a review on wherever you're listening this to Apple Podcasts or Spotify, YouTube, or just off our website. Go to the review section, leave a review, bumps it up in the health world so that it shows up. And other people can listen

Share Review And Reach Out

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in as well. If you have any questions, reach out to us. Info at fulllifetampa.com. We're here for you anytime. Stay well, stay healthy, take care.