How worried should you be about the health effects of microplastics?

Nina Agrawal | New York Times | June 6, 2025

X LinkedIn Facebook Reddit Bluesky Threads SMS Email

Animal studies indicate that microplastics may harm reproduction, particularly sperm quality. They can also affect lung and gut functioning and may increase the risk for lung and colon cancer, said Dr. [Tracey] Woodruff, who conducted a review of the research.

Mis- and disinformation are distorting science and public policy. Subscribe to our Daily and Weekly Digests for incisive coverage of ‘disruptive’ innovations in AI, agricultural biotechnology, food, chemicals, nuclear energy, vaccines, and other disruptive innovations.

Our bodies appear to clear out some of these microplastics, particularly the larger ones. Microplastics have been found in human stool and urine.

Jacques Robert, a professor of microbiology and immunology, and of environmental medicine, at the University of Rochester, said his own research on tadpoles fed microplastics has found that about 60 to 70 percent of the plastic was excreted. (That research has not yet been published.) Other studies have suggested that the plastic not excreted in waste appears to pass out of the gut and into the blood[.]

…

[T]here is early research in humans showing links between microplastics and preterm births, inflammation and cardiovascular disease.