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Methods for identifying microplastics in human biofluids: scoping review
Summary
Tiny plastic particles called microplastics are showing up in human body fluids, and scientists are still figuring out the best way to detect and measure them. This review looked at existing studies to compare the different testing methods researchers use, finding that there's currently no standard approach—which makes it hard to know exactly how much plastic is in our bodies or compare results across studies. This matters because before we can understand the health risks of microplastics, scientists need reliable, consistent ways to detect them in the first place.
The massive use of plastics has generated significant environmental and biological impacts, to the point that its residues will possibly mark the fossil record. At the end of its life cycle, plastic disintegrates into increasingly smaller fragments. Upon reaching the micrometric scale (microplastics), these materials can be absorbed by the human body, leading to potential local and systemic damage. Although the scientific community has dedicated continuous efforts to identify and characterize the presence of microplastics in different human tissues and matrices, this research area encounters important methodological challenges. The lack of standardization in analyses hinders the reproducibility of biological and toxicological assays. Given this, this scoping review aims primarily to investigate and map the analytical methods currently available in the literature to identify and characterize microplastics specifically in human biofluids.