Microplastics: The Invisible Killers
Or, You Know, Maybe Not

The great microplastics panic: Was it all just 99% bullshit?

I know a lot of you are saying "of course it was, dipshit."

I kinda-sorta bought into it at a low level. Microplastics were claimed to be a potential disruptor of testosterone. I didn't buy into it seriously, but I did buy steel straws instead of plastic ones. That's a pretty low level of buy-in. I think they cost me six buck.

After at least a decade or two of telling everyone their bodies were filled up with microscopic plastic chains in our brains, internal organs, and balls, some scientists now say it's mostly bullshit, the tests the alarmists are relying on can't tell "microplastics" from ordinary bodily fat.

'A bombshell': doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a 'joke'

High-profile studies reporting the presence of microplastics throughout the human body have been thrown into doubt by scientists who say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. One chemist called the concerns "a bombshell".

Studies claiming to have revealed micro and nanoplastics in the brain, testes, placentas, arteries and elsewhere were reported by media across the world, including the Guardian. There is no doubt that plastic pollution of the natural world is ubiquitous, and present in the food and drink we consume and the air we breathe. But the health damage potentially caused by microplastics and the chemicals they contain is unclear, and an explosion of research has taken off in this area in recent years.

However, micro- and nanoplastic particles are tiny and at the limit of today's analytical techniques, especially in human tissue. There is no suggestion of malpractice, but researchers told the Guardian of their concern that the race to publish results, in some cases by groups with limited analytical expertise, has led to rushed results and routine scientific checks sometimes being overlooked.

The Guardian has identified seven studies that have been challenged by researchers publishing criticism in the respective journals, while a recent analysis listed 18 studies that it said had not considered that some human tissue can produce measurements easily confused with the signal given by common plastics.

So, plastics are mostly made up of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, which are of course the building blocks of living tissue, too. So the "signals" are just indicating that carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen are present, and these high priests of The Science (TM) are saying "Must be plastic!!!"

...

'The paper is a joke'

"Levels of microplastics in human brains may be rapidly rising" was the shocking headline reporting a widely covered study in February. The analysis, published in a top-tier journal and covered by the Guardian, said there was a rising trend in micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) in brain tissue from dozens of postmortems carried out between 1997 and 2024.

However, by November, the study had been challenged by a group of scientists with the publication of a "Matters arising" letter in the journal. In the formal, diplomatic language of scientific publishing, the scientists said: "The study as reported appears to face methodological challenges, such as limited contamination controls and lack of validation steps, which may affect the reliability of the reported concentrations."

One of the team behind the letter was blunt. "The brain microplastic paper is a joke," said Dr Dusan Materic, at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. "Fat is known to make false-positives for polyethylene. The brain has [approximately] 60% fat." Materic and his colleagues suggested rising obesity levels could be an alternative explanation for the trend reported in the study.

Materić said: "That paper is really bad, and it is very explainable why it is wrong." He thinks there are serious doubts over "more than half of the very high impact papers" reporting microplastics in biological tissue.

...

But the brain study is far from alone in having been challenged. One, which reported that patients with MNPs detected in carotid artery plaques had a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes than patients with no MNPs detected, was subsequently criticised for not testing blank samples taken in the operating room. Blank samples are a way of measuring how much background contamination may be present.

Another study reported MNPs in human testes, "highlighting the pervasive presence of microplastics in the male reproductive system". But other scientists took a different view: "It is our opinion that the analytical approach used is not robust enough to support these claims."

So, should we all now just start eating plastic?

Yes. Yes we should.

BBC News You Can Use: Why (Leftwing) Women Are Going to Rage Rooms.

Um, because they are mentally ill and drugged up and no one ever tells them to shut the fuck up and act like adults?

The BBC assures me it's far more complex than that.

"There was definitely a moment of discomfort at the start," says Deena, but she says her visit to a so-called rage room felt very different to what she'd expected.

She didn't feel chaotic or aggressive smashing things up, but instead "surprisingly controlled and a lot more intentional".

"Once I settled into it, it felt like more of a physical release as opposed to an emotional outburst," she told the BBC.

Deena is one of a reportedly growing number of women choosing to pay to hammer and bash old items such as TVs, furniture and crockery whilst kitted out in specialist protective gear.

...

There are still only a small number of venues in the UK where people are handed a baseball bat and let loose. They've been touted as one way to alleviate stress and release pent-up anger.

But what seems surprising is the client base, with some owners saying most of their customers are women.

This surprises you, huh?

So in other words, your initial bigoted assumption is that violent men were employing these "rage rooms" to work out their toxic masculinity, and you were all set to attack them for this frenzied juvenile rage, but now that you are "surprised" to find out that drugged-up mentally-ill women are the primary (read: exclusive) users of rage rooms, it becomes a hip and health trend that everyone should try?

Similarly, Shuka says she didn't feel angry, but wanted to see how it felt to "let loose" and was given a car to smash up whilst listening to a playlist of her favourite songs.

"It was way more satisfying than I expected, there was something weirdly freeing about smashing things and not having to be careful.

"Afterwards I felt like I'd done a workout for my brain as well as my body," she says.

Kate Cutler, the co-owner and founder of a rage room in East Sussex, says it's "getting busier and busier" with female customers.

...

She says some women come in because they've been cheated on or had a difficult break-up and sometimes just because "they have anger coming from nowhere."

Author and psychotherapist Jennifer Cox told Radio 4 Woman's Hour she believes women are "conditioned" to repress feelings of "frustration, anger, aggression and rage".

Not as much conditioned to repress these toxic emotions as they used to be!

Often, she says women, in particular - end up "sandwiched" between the demands of work, parents and small children, and can end up "furious."

Really they should let it out, she says, and thinks spaces like this, which allow women to release their anger can be very helpful.

Again, do you believe they would view this violent, crazed behavior as cute and hip if it were men busting things up?

I guess this is now officially a GAINZZZ thread.

I avoided these for a long time, because I have no GAINZZZ. I let myself go at Thanksgiving and I never stopped letting myself go.

And now I'm going to have to fast just to get back to "overweight."

One thing I've been trying, sporadically, to do is to eat a lot of protein early in the day. Supposedly, according to a study mentioned by Thomas DeLauer, the body will feel hungry until it has consumed its preferred amount of protein for the day. After that, hunger is diminished. The target number is 0.6 gram per pound of body weight.

Does it work? I mean, kind of, yeah. If I have two high protein meals I don't feel very hungry at other times, or feel much of a need to snack. But I haven't been doing it consistently.

How about you? Any GAINZZZ? I didn't ask in the New Years period because promises made during New Years are like promises made three feet from a bed. They tend to be forgotten in the morning.

But now that we're into the New Year, and well away from New Years Day-- any real resolutions to declare?

Gainzzz inspirationzzzz:

posted by Ace at 05:30 PM

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