Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Microplastics in the Food Chain

This preprint reviews how microplastics enter and move through the food chain, from environmental sources to human consumption through seafood and other contaminated foods. The paper highlights the need for greater awareness of microplastic exposure through everyday diet.

2022 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics in the Food Chain

This review documents microplastic presence throughout the food trophic chain, examining how plastics enter food webs, accumulate with biomagnification, and affect organisms at each trophic level including humans who are at the top of the chain.

2022 Microplastics 8 citations
Article Tier 2

How microplastics interact with food chain: a short overview of fate and impacts

This review examines how microplastics move through the food chain, from water and soil into plants and animals, and ultimately into human food. Microplastics become more dangerous when they absorb toxic chemicals from the environment, and they accumulate in organisms because they take longer to pass through the body than to be consumed. The review highlights that microplastic bioaccumulation through the food web is a direct pathway for human exposure.

2023 Journal of Food Science and Technology 98 citations
Article Tier 2

The Effects of Microplastics on the Human Food Chain and Freshwater Ecosystem

This review examines how microplastic pollution affects freshwater ecosystems and the human food chain, tracing the transfer of MPs from contaminated water through aquatic organisms to human consumers and evaluating the cumulative health risks of dietary plastic exposure.

2025
Article Tier 2

A Summary of the Transporting Mechanism of Microplastics in Marine Food Chain and its Effects to Humans

This review summarized how microplastics are transported through marine food chains from plankton to fish to humans, detailing toxic effects at each trophic level and outlining mitigation strategies to reduce ecological and human health risks from oceanic plastic pollution.

2022 IOP Conference Series Earth and Environmental Science 5 citations
Article Tier 2

Impacts of Microplastics as Contaminants in Freshwater Ecosystems and Human Food Chain

This review examines the impacts of microplastics on freshwater ecosystems and human food chains, tracing how plastic particles enter rivers and lakes, accumulate in fish and invertebrates, and transfer to humans through consumption of contaminated freshwater species.

2025
Article Tier 2

Microplastic in the Aquatic Ecosystem and Human Health Implications

This review examines the sources, distribution, and pathways of microplastics in aquatic ecosystems, summarizing current evidence on how MPs enter the food chain, accumulate in aquatic fauna, and pose risks to both ecosystem health and human health through seafood consumption.

2022 5 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics: understanding the interaction with the food web and potential health hazards

This review traces how microplastics move through aquatic food webs, from tiny filter-feeding organisms up to predatory fish, and ultimately to humans who consume seafood. Evidence indicates that microplastics can accumulate and concentrate at each level of the food chain, carrying toxic chemicals that may cause inflammation and hormone disruption. The authors stress the need for more research to understand these pathways and develop strategies to reduce microplastic contamination in food.

2025 Journal of Environmental Engineering and Science 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Impact of Microplastics on AquaticOrganisms and Human Health: A Review

This review examines how microplastics from degraded plastic debris accumulate in aquatic environments, are ingested by organisms at all levels of the food chain, and may transfer to humans through seafood. The evidence warrants concern about microplastic contamination as an emerging public health issue.

2020 RePEc: Research Papers in Economics 6 citations
Article Tier 2

The Impact of Microplastics on Fish Poses a Threat to Human Health

This review summarizes how microplastics ingested by fish accumulate through the food chain, posing a direct threat to human health via consumption of contaminated seafood.

2024
Article Tier 2

Microplastics in human food chains: Food becoming a threat to health safety

This review traces how microplastics enter the human food chain through both animal and plant sources, food packaging, and beverages. Once consumed, microplastics can accumulate in tissues and release harmful chemicals like plasticizers and heavy metals inside the body. The study emphasizes that food has become a major exposure pathway for microplastics and calls for stricter regulation of plastic use in food production and packaging.

2022 The Science of The Total Environment 542 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic Contamination in the Marine Food Web

This review examines the contamination of the marine food web by microplastics, tracing the pathways by which plastic particles enter and move through trophic levels from primary producers to top consumers including marine mammals and humans, and summarizing evidence for toxicological effects and human exposure through seafood consumption.

2022 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Micro-Nano Plastics in Aquatic Environments: Associated Health Impacts and Mitigation Strategies

This review examines how micro- and nanoplastics in aquatic environments are biologically transferred up the food chain, covering the factors that influence particle bioavailability, accumulation in organisms, and trophic transfer — with implications for both aquatic ecosystem health and human dietary exposure.

2025
Systematic Review Tier 1

Microplastics and seafood: lower trophic organisms at highest risk of contamination

This systematic review summarizes existing research on microplastic contamination in commercially important seafood species. The findings show that organisms lower on the food chain, like shellfish and small fish, tend to accumulate the most microplastics. Since many people eat these organisms whole, including their digestive tracts, this represents a direct pathway for microplastics to enter the human diet.

2019 Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 564 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and Their Impacts on Organisms and Trophic Chains

This review synthesizes current knowledge on microplastic pollution, examining the mechanisms by which microplastics affect organisms at multiple levels of biological organization and how plastic particles transfer through trophic chains, accumulating and potentially magnifying in concentration up the food web. Researchers highlight evidence for physical, chemical, and microbial impacts on organisms ranging from invertebrates to mammals, including humans, and identify priority areas for future ecotoxicological research.

2022 Water 8 citations
Article Tier 2

Trophic transfer of microplastics in zooplanktons towards its speculations on human health: A review

This review examines how microplastics move through the ocean food chain, from tiny zooplankton at the base up through fish to humans, and what health effects may result. Trophic transfer means microplastics can concentrate as they move up the food web, increasing human dietary exposure.

2019 8 citations
Article Tier 2

Influence of Micro and Nanoplastics in Modern Food Chain: an Inevitable Intervention

This review examines the growing presence of microplastics and nanoplastics throughout the modern food chain, summarizing known entry points, concentrations in food commodities, and potential health consequences of regular human dietary exposure.

2024 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Effects of plastics and microplastics on aquatic organisms and human health

This review summarizes how plastics and microplastics reach water environments through multiple pathways and harm aquatic organisms including fish, invertebrates, and plankton. Because these organisms are eaten by humans, the review concludes that microplastic contamination of aquatic ecosystems poses a meaningful indirect risk to human health through the food we eat.

2020 Ege Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Trophic transfer of microplastics and mixed contaminants in the marine food web and implications for human health

This review examines how microplastics and the chemicals they carry transfer through marine food webs from lower to higher trophic levels, and what this means for human health given that people consume marine fish and seafood. It identifies microplastics as a vector for bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in ways that ultimately reach humans.

2018 OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints)
Article Tier 2

Occurrence and pathways of microplastics, quantification protocol and adverseeffects of microplastics towards freshwater and seawater biota

This review examines the occurrence, pathways, and adverse effects of microplastics on freshwater and marine organisms, highlighting how these particles can enter the food chain through seafood consumption. The study suggests that microplastic ingestion causes health hazards in aquatic animals and points to gaps in understanding how microplastics affect human health along the food supply chain.

2023 Food Research 11 citations
Article Tier 2

Describing the Accumulation, Concentration, and Amplification Effects of MPs Through the Food Chain

This review examines evidence for microplastic accumulation, concentration, and amplification through food chains from primary producers to predators. The authors discuss the degree to which trophic transfer leads to biomagnification of plastic particles and co-adsorbed chemical contaminants, with implications for wildlife and human dietary exposure.

2024 Current Nutrition & Food Science 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics in the Environment: Uptake, Bioaccumulation and Impacts on Plants, Animals and Humans Health: A Review

This review examines microplastic uptake, bioaccumulation, and health impacts across plants, animals, and humans. The study summarizes current evidence on how microplastic particles smaller than 5 mm have been detected in all environmental compartments and are entering biological systems through multiple exposure pathways.

2026 SPIRE - Sciences Po Institutional REpository
Article Tier 2

Food Contamination by Microplastics and Human Health Implications

This review examines how food is contaminated by microplastics throughout the supply chain — from agricultural soil and irrigation water to food processing and packaging — and evaluates the health implications for human consumers. The authors estimate dietary microplastic intake across food categories and identify seafood, drinking water, and packaged foods as the highest-exposure routes.

2024 Food Safety
Article Tier 2

From Sea to Plate: The Plastic Pollution Problem in the Food Chain

This review analyzes the transfer of microplastics through the food chain from marine environments to human consumption, drawing on 12 published studies. Researchers found evidence of microplastic ingestion by fish and animals consumed by humans, as well as the presence of microplastics in human tissues and blood. The findings underscore the need for further research into how microplastics accumulate and transfer through the food web to reach the human body.

2025 1 citations