All tumours, no exception, contain dihydrogen monoxide.
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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You know, I've never understood why there are no warning labels on the bottles of the stuff.
correlation doesnt equal causation. CANCER cell in general have higher metabolic energy requirements, so they intake more(pump) in the surrouding environment to fuel thier uncontrolled cell division, so naturally microplastics on the outside of the cell would be pumped into the cell along with nutrients it stealing at higher than normal tissue to fuel its growth.
I agree with you, but with the carcinogenic nature of aryl compounds used in, and as by-products of, the polymerization and hardening/softening of plastics, the incidence of plastics in cells could in turn turn them cancerous, and thus increase the rate at which they draw nutrients and microplastics from the vascular system.
One may not necessarily cause the other, but they are overwhelmingly correlated - beyond the point of suspicion.
It would be interesting to see a study comparing other types of cancers, their microplastic levels, and the microplastic levels of other cells in progressively radiating distances from the cancerous cells.
Wouldnt it be smarter to test for cancer risk with microplastics in blood as the explaining variable.
Because all that gives you is saying "wow Theres a tumor, and it contains microplastics".
I dont know how one would reasonably test for a specific 'risk' of cancer from plastics considering the plethora of plastic and non-plastic causes of cancer as variables (both chemical and physical). One would have to go further and define specifically which mechanism(s) we're talking about (Microplastic? Nanoplastics? Macroplastics? Physical contact/cellular damage from plastics? Amount of cancerous chemicals leeching out of the microplastics that entered the cell passively (considering theoretically it only takes a single molecule of a cancerous substance, to damage a specific oncogene whose reparation was simply overlooked by cellular gene repair chanisms thus causing cancer))? Do we differentiate between cancers caused by different plasticizers leeching out of different materials? And at what rate?)
As infinitely reductive as the thought experiment may be, ultimately, it's almost unnecessary when you consider that any size of microplastics leeching any amount of carcinogenic chemicals inside cells is too much, and should be treated with as much disdain as drinking from leaded pipes.
More specifically, given the ubiquity of plastics in all humans, good luck finding a control group.
How? You test the variables separately. For example, if smoking increases risk by 50%, combine the smoker and non-smoker groups with that in mind
I'm pretty sure that 90% of all biomass in general contains microplastics these days.
Thanks boomers!
You greatly underestimate the pervasiveness of microplastics.
Good thing we just deregulated like everything
Now do bowel cancer as that's exploding too.
We have so much toxic crap in every part of the world now...
We (the richest and most moral of us) have really made the plastics index hit amazing new highs. What a success!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/microplastics-human-body-doubt
TL;DR: science currently has no efficient way to actually measure microplastic content with being able to control for outside contaminants
can I get a eli5 for this? it sounds scary but I'm also not sure what you meant.
IIRC, there's a harder, trusted process for measurement. But an easier method that has gained widespread adoption, and that method is what has been called into question.
This is a hit piece, echoes of big oil & tobacco. It's picking studies that have (debatable) issues, then is casting a wide net that is encouraging doubt of all microplastics in the body studies. They take the time to explain why these can be ignored, but depend on you to go read the counter-counterarguments made by the original researchers of each study yourself.
Rauert says there are absolutely nanoplastics in our bodies, but micro plastics are unlikely due to their size.
It doesn't do a meta-analysis of all MNP studies and doesn't disregard bad criticisms or biased voices (Kuhlman). It's also sensationalised.
Pulled from a chat about this when this was released
When you lack a control, though you should still be able to compare those with tumours and those without. One treatment (no tumour) to the other.
Controls answer: what if we did nothing? And how big are the effects vs doing nothing?
E: they can't get accurate measurements themselves that's the issue, not the lack of uncontaminated controls
Agreed. The technology is still new, evolving, or not there yet. I was at an aquarium only last month. They were showing me a machine where there are only 7 available in the US so far. The scientist only got it like 3 days before I spoke to her so she hadnt used it yet but it measures concentration of microplastics in the ocean and is specific enough to tell you what different microplastics are there and their likely sources. Really cool but this science is super new and in its infancy.
It looks pretty at least lol
We are all full of microplastics, but our tumors are too.
Take that, tumor!
With everything going on in the world, i actually dont care about microplastics. If i was rich then i would care way more about my future 😂
And this guy stuck his finger in them?!
That's.....how you check for prostate cancer
There are blood tests now.
Science takes the fun out of everything
Finger up the booty is still the standard afaik. They can test for a lot of things in lab, but that's the expensive way: when there's a virtually free (for the hospital, didn't get your hopes up, muricans) alternative, that'll be the winner every single time.
Not only for the hospital. You can help your homies out for free, too.
100% of acid rain contains dihydrogen monoxide
I guess we should switch to glass disldos.
Whew good thing I only have dildos and not disldos
/j
Does the extra letter increase its girth? ;)
I can't find a link to the study from the article but I think this is the publication they're referring to.
I'm not a scientist, but that seems kind of weird maybe even bad
Ah well, fuck it I will now spend $2,000 USD on a super-detailed limited edition Batman display figurine