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Pathways of human exposure to microplastics, and estimation of the total burden
Summary
Tiny plastic bits called microplastics are everywhere, in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and even things that touch our skin, and this review pulls together existing research to show we're exposed through all three routes, not just by eating contaminated food like most studies focus on. The bigger takeaway: scientists still don't have standardized, reliable ways to measure exactly how much plastic ends up in our bodies, so the true scale of our exposure remains uncertain. This matters because until better testing methods exist, it's hard to know just how much plastic we're really taking in, or what it's doing to our health.
Plastic production is continuously growing and their wastes contaminate practically all environmental niches. In the environment, large plastics undergo continuous degradation processes generating a broad amount of microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPLs) that spread through air, land, and seas. Thus, humans suffer chronic exposures to MNPLs through different pathways: ingestion, inhalation, and dermal contact. Here, we have reviewed the recently published data regarding human exposure to MNPLs. The total load of plastic particles that humans are exposed to has been estimated based on these newly reported studies. This analysis of novel literature shows that despite ingestion is the most studied route of exposure, other routes of contact with MNPLs should not be underestimated. At the same time, gaps regarding the investigation of human exposures to environmental MNPLs have been detected, as well as the lack of robust and standardized protocols, operating procedures, and methodologies to detect/quantify MNPL in human/biological matrices.