"In a new study published in the journal Environmental Research Communications , researchers found that mice which were regularly exposed to microplastics in their diet developed symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, in less than a single month. The mice were genetically modified to have a gene associated with a higher risk of the neurocognitive disorder. But only the ones that were exposed to the microplastics showed symptoms at such a marked rate."
"It's a startling link between the ubiquitous, tiny sized pollutants and deleterious effects in the brain. Though microplastics are believed to be in the bloodstream of nearly every human, and have been found even in locations as hermetic as the inside of our bones - and of course peppering our mushy gray matter - until now, its effects on our health, if any, have been unclear."
""I'm still really surprised by it," study coauthor Jaime Ross, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Rhode Island, . "I just can't believe that you are exposed to these particles and something like this can happen." Scientists still don't know the underlying cause of Alzheimer's, making it difficult to draw sweeping conclusions about what plastic particles are doing to provoke its symptoms."
Mice regularly fed microplastics developed Alzheimer's-like symptoms in under a month. Only mice carrying the APOE4 genetic variant and exposed to microplastics showed such rapid symptom onset. Microplastics were introduced as polystyrene particles mixed into drinking water. Microplastics have been detected in human bloodstreams, bones, and brain tissue, indicating near-ubiquitous exposure. APOE4 increases Alzheimer's risk roughly 3.5-fold compared with APOE3; carrying two copies corresponds to about a 60 percent likelihood of dementia by age 85. The precise biological mechanisms linking microplastic exposure to neurodegeneration remain unknown, making causation and human risk uncertain.
Read at Futurism
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