No evidence of intestinal damage from polystyrene microplastic in the laboratory
Creators: name: German Federal Institute For Risk Assessment (BfR)
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: polystyrene
subject: PS
subject: microplastic
subject: intestinal tissue
subject: oxidative stress
subject: inflammation
subject: http://id.agrisemantics.org/gacs/C26064
subject: http://id.agrisemantics.org/gacs/C3705
subject: http://id.agrisemantics.org/gacs/C1812
subject: http://id.agrisemantics.org/gacs/C2046

description: Researchers at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) have found no evi-dence of damage to intestinal tissue such as oxidative stress or inflammatory signs caused by polystyrene (PS) microplastic particles. This is the most important result of the experi-ments conducted in the laboratory. PS is one of the most widely used plastics worldwide. It is used, among other things, for the production of food packaging and everyday items such as bicycle helmets. Microplastic re-fers to small plastic particles and fibres which are increasingly detected in the environment. Initial scientific analyses show that humans also consume PS microplastics through their diet. The aim of the study at BfR was therefore to investigate the uptake and effects of PS micro-plastics. This is important because only limited data are available to evaluate the potential effects of microplastics. BfR scientists used two methods: On the one hand, they used cul-tures of human intestinal epithelial cells (in vitro) to investigate whether PS microplastic parti-cles of different sizes (one, four and ten micrometers [μm] in diameter) can be taken up into the cells. On the other hand, mice were fed with these particles (in vivo) for 28 days to exam-ine the transport of microplastic particles into the gut and the response of the intestinal cells to PS microplastics. The cell culture experiments showed that PS particles up to a diameter of about four microns can indeed be absorbed by epithelial cells of the intestinal wall. In animal experiments, how-ever, it was found that despite the administration of very large quantities of plastic particles ranging in size from 1 to 10 μm, these could only be detected occasionally in the investigated intestinal epithelial cells. The levels administered were far above those that appear to be realistic for humans. No harmful effects were observed in the intestinal tissue or other organs of the mice. The researchers explicitly point out that there are still large gaps in the data regarding the size and material of microplastics. For example, no conclusions can be drawn from the gen-erated data on the effects in the intestine of microplastics made of other plastics. Therefore, further experimental studies are needed to analyse the uptake of microplastics and to per-form a risk assessment. The results of the animal study were published in the journal Archives of Toxicology: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00204-019-02478-7 <strong>Link: https://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/349/no-evidence-of-intestinal-damage-from-polystyrene-microplastic-in-laboratory.pdf</strong>
description: DE; PDF; efsa-focal-point@bfr.bund.de
description: {"references": ["Valerie Stock et al. (2019).Uptake and effects of orally ingested polystyrene microplastic particles in vitro and in vivo.Archives of Toxicology"]}