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Microplastics in Edible Fish Tissues: Analytical Methods, Global Occurrence, and Implications for Human Exposure — A Systematic Review
Original title: Microplastics in Edible Fish Tissues: Analytical Methods, Global Occurrence, and Implications for Human Exposure — A Systematic Review
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Scientists are pulling together everything researchers have found about microplastics — tiny plastic bits — hiding in the parts of fish we actually eat, not just the guts we throw away. This matters because it helps clarify how much plastic might end up on your dinner plate, though the review is careful to note that just finding microplastics in fish doesn't automatically mean we know how risky that is for your health yet. Think of it as an important first step in figuring out what we actually know (and don't know) about plastic in our seafood.
This project is a systematic review of original research articles reporting microplastics in edible fish tissues, including muscle, fillet, flesh, fish meat, edible muscle, and edible portions. The review aims to synthesize analytical methods, global occurrence patterns, particle characteristics, methodological quality, and implications for potential human exposure through fish consumption. The review will include English-language original research articles published from 2020 to 2026 that report primary data on microplastics in edible tissues of marine, freshwater, or estuarine fish. Studies focused exclusively on gastrointestinal tract, gills, liver, water, sediment, non-fish organisms, or whole organisms without separate edible tissue data will be excluded. The review will follow PRISMA 2020 reporting guidance, and the protocol structure is informed by PRISMA-P where applicable. Screening, eligibility decisions, exclusion reasons, methodological quality assessment, and data extraction will be managed using StArt. The synthesis will be primarily narrative due to expected methodological heterogeneity across studies. Direct human health risk will not be inferred unless sufficient exposure and toxicological evidence is available; instead, the review will distinguish occurrence, potential dietary exposure, food safety relevance, and health-risk interpretation.
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