#907 - Dr Rhonda Patrick - How Microplastics Are Ruining Your Health

There is a pretty classic study that was done that showed that men... if they consumed 75 grams of added sugar, so that would be like a medium-sized donut and a Coke... this caused a 25% decrease in their circulating testosterone within a 2-hour range...

And there have been studies that have shown that men, young men, that consume 20 ounces of a sugar-sweetened beverage a day for three weeks... After three weeks, their inflammatory biomarkers go up like 100%. So that's causing inflammation in just healthy young men.

If you're eating a lot of added sugar, then you can basically be on the high end of the normal range for blood glucose levels. So, you're within the normal range, but on the higher end ... There are studies showing that people on the high end of the normal range have increased atrophy in the hippocampus part of their brain—that's involved in learning and memory—and they have higher atrophy in the amygdala part of the brain—that's involved in emotional regulation—compared to people on the lower ... There's also other studies showing that higher blood glucose levels are associated with 54% increased risk for vascular dementia.

Another big source now... is tea bags because you're adding hot water to tea, and the tea bags themselves are made of either polypropylene, they're made of nylon, or they're made of, interestingly, cellulose ... You can get anywhere between millions to billions of microplastic particles per milliliter...

Black plastic is often made from recycled electronics ... And recycled electronics often have chemicals in them that are added to prevent fires from starting ... They add brominated flame retardants which are carcinogenic.

There's been a variety of studies, actually a lot of them coming out in 2024 last year, some new ones coming out this year, showing that microplastics seem to accumulate in the brain 10 to 20 times more than other organs. And this was a study out of Sao Paulo, Brazil ... Why are they accumulating so heavily in the brain? ... I think it has to do with the fact that we're breathing in these particles...

Bottom line is BPA, it's lined on the receipts. Nitrile gloves can stop people from absorbing it ... Also, if you wear cream or hand sanitizer, it's been shown to increase the dermal absorption of BPA by a hundredfold.

Microplastics, we kind of talked about a little bit getting rid of them, and that really, the main source is excretion through feces, and that happens with dietary fiber. So if you are eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, that does increase the chances that microplastics are going to move their way out through feces.

In that same study, they looked post-mortem at people that had dementia like Alzheimer's disease. And those individuals that had dementia and Alzheimer's disease had ten times more microplastics in their brains than people that did not have dementia and Alzheimer's disease, 10 times more ... There are animal studies that have shown that microplastics in the brain can cause inflammation, chronic inflammation, and we do know that plays a big role in brain aging, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease.

There was a study, it was a small study that was done, that found 100% of people, and they also tested dogs, 100% of both people and dogs had microplastics in their semen ... And it was also this was also associated with disrupted morphology—so the structure of sperm—and also motility...

There are studies showing that the, they're called beta-glucans—and they're in oats, and they're in mushrooms—but the study used oats. The beta-glucans, which is, by the way, a fermentable type of fiber, they were, they actually caused excretion of the forever chemicals, PFAS, in animals, which is something that doesn't happen.

I mentioned heat breaking down the microplastics. Well, heat can break them down into nanoplastic size. So you don't want to microwave any food in plastic, you don't want to cook with any plastic utensils, and you don't want to drink out of something that's going to have a hot beverage poured into it because that's going to rapidly accelerate the breakdown into smaller particles. For example, a lot of to go coffee cups are lined with with plastic...

But the other thing that's really interesting that actually can affect the way you absorb these microplastics, is believe it or not, dietary fiber...

There's been a variety of studies looking at, for example, urinary BPA exposure and testosterone levels. And there's an association with higher urinary BPA exposure, higher urinary BPA excretion, and lower testosterone...

So bisphenol-a and a lot of these plastic chemicals, the primary root of excretion is through urine ... Sauna, you're excreting mostly is through sweat. And there are a lot of toxins that we're exposed to that we do excrete through sweat. A lot of those are heavy metals. So for example, cadmium and aluminum ... They're more readily excreted through sweat than through urine. And so when you get in the sauna, you can excrete a little bit of BPA. It does come out through sweat as well. However, the majority of chemicals that are being excreted through sweat are heavy metals.

Ultimately, people are eating, 13% of their daily caloric intake is coming from added sugar ... The strictest guidelines suggest no more than 5% of your total daily calorie intake coming from added sugar. So that would be no more than 25 grams a day—5%. People are eating 13% of their total calorie intake from added sugar.

Generally speaking, an obesogenic diet, so the worst thing you can do is have a diet high in a lot of fats, particularly saturated fat, combined with refined sugar. So think like ice cream, right? Anything that's really high in saturated fat plus refined sugar can cause intestinal permeability. Obesity itself can play a role in that as well. Binge drinking is another one. Chronic stress ... Releasing stress hormones causes intestinal permeability...

...There's been studies looking at BPA, leaching into liquid when heat, like boiling water, is applied. It increases increases the leaching by 55 times, which is huge. It also increases microplastic breakdown, because you're breaking down the plastic.

Basically, eating a lot of fermentable fiber increases butyrate production, really helps keep your gut healthy and prevent intestinal permeability. But I think the main thing really is you want to make sure you're eating whole foods. So fruits, vegetables, lean meats, poultry, fish—like a whole foods diet. Ultra-processed food diet increases intestinal permeability.

High urinary BPA levels is associated with decreased cognition, decreased memory scores, decreased learning...

Unfortunately, our oceans are contaminated. So, microplastics are also found in a lot of fish—and particularly they accumulate in the digestive tract of fish. So if you're eating shellfish or clams or oysters or anything where you're eating the whole digestive tract—or a sardine, whole sardine—then you're going to be getting microplastics.