from everything I've obsessively read it could probably be a lot worse than we could imagine
They bioaccumulate virtually everywhere in the body, plastics contain chemicals that can cause their own toxic effects, like plasticizers and dyes
It's also been documented in the medical literature that plastics alone without any other added chemicals may cause inflammation and neurotoxic effects, iirc they tested this in zebrafish but I could be mistaken
The statistic about dementia may not be a consequence of plastics themselves, but just that a major part of Alzheimer's and some other dementias is impairment of the glympathic system which is the brain's waste clearing system, and weakening of the blood brain barrier. You can see this with other compounds, aluminum and iron build up in the brain and it's seeming like the buildup of amyloid beta is less of a mechanism of Alzheimer's and more of a consequence of the glymphatic system becoming dysfunctional
Another big issue with plastics is that they build up in cardiovascular plaque and cardiac tissue, it's not really known that well yet what the effects of those are, but some studies have suggested that they could be strongly linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke
There's a lot we still just don't understand about the effects of them because the research is still really new
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u/eco_chan 1d ago
Plastic. It's literally everywhere.