It is in our food, our drinking water and in the air, in short, everywhere: microplastics. But how much of it do we inhale and consume through our food every day? For the first time, a map provides information about the intake of microplastics by people in 109 countries, including Austria.
“Microplastics can even be detected in the carotid artery” – this was the news that Salzburg cardiologist Friedrich Hoppichler and health psychologist Julia Schatzer recently made people pay attention to. In a study, they showed that not only microplastics, i.e. plastic particles with a diameter of less than five millimeters, but also nanoplastics with a size between one and 1,000 nanometers (millionths of a millimeter) are found in the carotid arteries of atherosclerosis patients . The conclusion is that this could lead to an increase in acute cardiovascular diseases.
“We ingest microplastics every day: through inhalation, skin contact, through the mucous membranes on the surface of the eyes or through the consumption of contaminated food,” the researchers wrote. But how much actually? A world map of microplastic consumption now provides information for the first time on the consumption of microplastics by people in 109 countries.
Source: Krone
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