Microplastics detectable in the carotid artery

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A recent study of patients suffering from arteriosclerosis shows that microplastics and nanoplastics can even be detected in the carotid artery. Austrian researchers report that this could lead to an increase in acute cardiovascular diseases.

“We ingest microplastics daily: through inhalation, skin contact, via the mucous membranes of the eye surfaces, or through the consumption of contaminated food. It is estimated that humans ingest around a quarter of a kilogram of microplastics in this way every year,” write cardiologist Friedrich Hoppichler and health psychologist Julia Schätzer in the medical journal ‘Cardio News.’

The particles enter many tissues via the bloodstream. Microplastics have already been discovered in heart muscle tissue. And animal models have shown that exposure to micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) appears to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, according to the experts.

Microplastics are plastic particles with a diameter of less than five millimeters. Nanoplastics are particles between one and 1,000 nanometers in size.

PVC also detected
The Italian internist Raffaele Marfella from the University of Naples and co-authors recently provided evidence of microplastics and nanoplastics in patients’ atherosclerosis plaques, as Hoppichler and Schätzer reported. These plaques are small, inflammatory changes in the blood vessels.

In a 257 study, participants between 18 and 75 underwent surgery to remove the plaques, and polyethylene was detected in 58 percent of the tissue samples. “In 31 of them (12.1 percent), PVC (polyvinyl chloride) was also detected,” the experts report.

Eight out of 107 patients (7.5 percent) in whom no MNPs were detected in the removed plaques had acute cardiovascular disease over an average observation period of 33.7 months. In the group of patients with MNPs detected in the carotid artery, however, 30 out of 150 had such an acute event (20 percent).

Inflammation as a risk factor
This is not yet causal proof of the connection between micro- and nanoplastics in plaques, as they occur in vascular calcification. However, this could be clarified in further studies. According to Hoppichler and Schätzer, one hypothesis is that MNPs apparently have pro-inflammatory properties. Subliminal chronic inflammation, however, is a recognized risk factor for atherosclerosis and for plaques that form in the arteries, which can lead to thrombus formation and thus to heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular diseases if they suddenly break open.