By now, we’ve all accepted that microplastics are everywhere.
It’s raining down from the sky. It’s somehow made its way deep into caves that have been closed off to people for decades. It’s in nearly every organ in our bodies. Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, scientists discovered that a plastic spoon’s worth of these particles can make their way into the human brain.
Published in Brain Medicine, a new review study suggests that microplastics may be the previously overlooked link between ultra-processed junk foods and neurological disorders like depression and dementia. Your brain fog might not just be from bad sleep, it could be from the plastic in your chicken nuggets.
Are the Microplastics in Your Brain Making You Depressed?
Dr. Nicholas Fabiano, lead author and psychiatry resident at the University of Ottawa, points out that over half the daily calories in countries like the U.S. come from ultra-processed foods, which just so happen to contain way more microplastics than less-processed counterparts.
The ultra-processed-ness of foods plays a big role, of course. But so does the plastic packaging that keeps it shelf stable and ensures that, for instance, a frozen chicken thigh doesn’t give you salmonella when you eat it a month after you bought it.
Even more concerning, microplastics can sneak past the blood-brain barrier by clinging to fat molecules. Once inside, they mess with neurotransmitters, possibly contributing to cognitive decline and mood disorders. Conveniently, this plastic-triggered messing with your brain mirrors the damage caused by ultra-processed diets themselves, which have already been linked to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and dementia.
Wolfgang Marx, a co-author from Deakin University, notes that microplastics and processed foods share eerily similar mechanisms of brain damage, sharing symptoms like inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neurotransmitter disruption.
There is one shred of hope amongst the misery of knowing the foods that comfort you when you’re depressed are making you even more depressed: scientists recently published a completely separate study wherein they reveal that they may have found a way to scrub microplastics out of your bloodstream.
In a small study, a medical procedure called extracorporeal apheresis successfully removed microplastics from patients’ plasma. It’s still early days, but it’s a glimmer of hope that we might someday filter all these microplastics out of our bloodstream.
In the meantime, maybe decline that second helping of ultra-processed chicken nuggets and maybe consider not chewing gum anymore, because yeah, sorry, but apparently that stuff is loaded with microplastics, too.
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