Environmental exposure to microplastics: An overview on possible human health effects.
By J. C. Prata, J. D. da Costa, I. Lopes, Armando C. Duarte, Teresa A. P. Rocha-Santos. Science of the Total Environment, 2019
2,024 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Microplastics are ubiquitous environmental contaminants leading to inevitable human exposure. Even so, little is known about the effects of microplastics in human health. Thus, in this work we review the evidence for potential negative effects of microplastics in the human body, focusing on pathways of exposure and toxicity. Exposure may occur by ingestion, inhalation and dermal contact due to the presence of microplastics in products, foodstuff and air. In all biological systems, microplastic exposure may cause particle toxicity, with oxidative stress, inflammatory lesions and increased uptake or translocation. The inability of the immune system to remove synthetic particles may lead to chronic inflammation and increase risk of neoplasia. Furthermore, microplastics may release their constituents, adsorbed contaminants and pathogenic organisms. Nonetheless, knowledge on microplastic toxicity is still limited and largely influenced by exposure concentration, particle properties, adsorbed contaminants, tissues involved and individual susceptibility, requiring further research.
Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/58ce27c8b62ccba297918984e9cabc371a8c8bc3
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Citations in the corpus
- Microplastics in freshwater fishes: Occurrence, impacts and future perspectives (2021, background): “A secondary goal is often trying to understand the potential human exposure via ingestion of contaminated fauna (Oliveira et al., 2019; Prata et al., 2020; Rainieri & Barranco, 2019; Walkinshaw et al., 2020).”
- Raman Microspectroscopy Detection and Characterisation of Microplastics in Human Breastmilk (2022, background): “The lack of association with the use of personal care products is likely explained by considering that dermal contact has a minor impact as an exposure route, since only particles <100 nanometres can cross the dermal barrier [11].”
- Impact of Microplastics and Nanoplastics on Human Health (2021, background): “There are three key routes for microplastics and nanoplastics to end up in the human body: Inhalation, ingestion and skin contact (Figure 2) [47,48].”