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Microplastics and Cardiovascular Disease: Should Clinicians Be Paying Attention?
Summary
This clinical review summarizes evidence for microplastics as a cardiovascular risk factor, noting that they have been detected in human cardiovascular tissues and that in vitro and animal studies link them to oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, and platelet disruption, while cautioning that human evidence remains associative.
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To provide clinicians with a concise introduction of microplastics potential role as a cardiovascular risk factor. RECENT FINDINGS: Microplastics have been identified in human cardiovascular tissues. In vitro and animal-based studies associate microplastics presence with increased oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, platelet aggregation disruption, and low-grade inflammation. Small human studies report associations between intraplaque or circulating microplastics and cardiovascular outcomes. However, these signals are associative, method-dependent, and vulnerable to exposure misclassification, co-pollutant confounding, contamination, and heterogeneous analytics. Microplastics are pervasive and biologically plausible as a cardiovascular risk factor, supported by growing in-vitro evidence and incipient human association studies. Cohesive population-level measures to curb MP pollution should be embedded within policies addressing broader environmental cardiovascular risk factors. For clinicians, it remains premature to recommend personal-level mitigation strategies, and MPs are best regarded as an emerging exposure within the patient's exposome that warrants awareness and further rigorous studies.