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Spaceork3001 t1_irduq2x wrote

Reply to comment by HappiestIguana in Widely used sewer pipe repair technology creates and emits nanoplastics into the air by ajwhelton

Couldn't large scale studies pry apart some correlation between the amount of microplastics and the incidence of different diseases? If controlled sufficiently for similar lifestyles, this could potentially point us in the right direction, without needing to find a subpopulation with zero microplastics in their blood.

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HappiestIguana t1_irfirjb wrote

The problem there is confounding factors. Microplastic exposure is largely based on geography and socioeconomic class, which are both heavily correlated with health outcomes and have been since before microplastics.

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Spaceork3001 t1_irg3mz3 wrote

That's what I meant with being controlled for similar lifestyles. If factors like wealth, education, BMI, drug use, medical history and so on are held constant, and microplastics amount in blood scales with some type of disease, it could point us in the right direction, no? Without having to necessarily study populations without microplastics exposure.

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