Blood filtration may offer new hope for removing microplastics from the body

For the first time, scientists have shown that an established blood-cleansing procedure could help rid the human body of tiny plastic particles, offering hope for new detox solutions amid rising global contamination.

​​​​​​​Study: Therapeutic apheresis: A promising method to remove microplastics? ​​​​​​​Image Credit: SIVStockStudio / Shutterstock

Rising plastics use is associated with massive and widespread environmental contamination with plastics. Much evidence suggests that in their degraded form, they have entered living organisms, including the human body. A recent article in the journal Brain Medicine reports on the feasibility of removing such forms of plastics using an established technique called therapeutic apheresis.

Introduction

Microplastics and nanoplastics are forms of plastic with greatest diameters of 1μm–5 mm and <1 μm in greatest diameter, respectively. Together, they are dubbed MNP.

MNPs may be byproducts of commercial production cycles involving goods like pharmaceutical formulations or cosmetics. They may also represent a degradation stage of waste plastic.

MNP exist everywhere in the world, including marine and forest environments. Recent research hints strongly at their threat to human health and potentially links them to multiple health conditions. The scientific paper notes that due to current methodological limitations, it's often more precise to speak of MNPs or MNP-like structures, which may involve MNPs combined with other molecules like proteins, and that reports on MNP presence in tissues should be interpreted with some caution. These include cardiometabolic disease (such as stroke, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome), cancer, infertility, dementia, and other neurodegenerative conditions.

Such disorders may be triggered or accelerated by the presence of MNPs. For instance, some scientists postulate that MNPs taken up by adrenal gland tissue may disrupt the normal production of adrenal steroids like cortisol. Cortisol, being a stress hormone, abnormal cortisol levels in the blood may dysregulate stress responses. This may explain why many viral infections are currently followed by chronic fatigue after clinical recovery. A further theory is that MNPs help carry infectious agents into cells and tissues.

Currently, MNP exposure is unavoidable, leading researchers to investigate whether it can be effectively removed from the body.

The authors of the current study examined the use of therapeutic apheresis to potentially remove MNPs from the body. At present, this technique is used to remove certain blood components, such as cells or plasma proteins.

About the study

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) has been dramatically more prevalent in recent years. This is associated with increasing air pollution by particles 10μm or less in size.

In an earlier study by the same authors, ME/CFS patients reported a 70% improvement in symptoms after they received this therapy. It is important to note that this prior observation related to symptom improvement and did not specifically investigate MNP removal. The current study took this further by looking for the presence of MNP-like particles in the eluted fluid.

About therapeutic apheresis

Therapeutic apheresis is basically a filtration process. Blood from the patient passes from a vein through a circuit involving an apheresis machine that contains a series of filters designed to remove different blood components. For instance, one set of filters might remove autoantibodies, while another might target blood lipids.

The filtered blood is now passed back into the patient using a second vein. The eluate will be enriched in the components removed from blood.

Study findings

In the current study, 21 patients who had post-infectious ME/CFS were treated using two cycles of therapeutic apheresis, or more, using double filtration. The concentrated eluate was measured by a sophisticated analytical method called attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FT-IR) spectroscopy. It's important to note that this analysis does not quantitatively measure MNPs; it only determines whether MNP-like particles are present or not.

This revealed 14 types of substances or mixtures resembling MNP-like particles in the eluates from these patients, but not the prerinse fluid. The IR spectrum showed a 67.5% match for polyamide 6 (nylon 6), and 35.3% match for polyurethane (PUR-WS). Some of these particles were 200 nm in size or smaller.

This might be due to the presence of polyamide 6, a synthetic polymer primarily produced as a fiber rather than a particle, which is manufactured as electrospun fibers <100 nm for some specialized applications.

This spectroscopic method identifies the presence of polyamide bonds, though this may indicate the presence of proteins as well. This limits the definitiveness of this observation regarding the precise composition of the detected particles.

Conclusions

This study reports for the first time a method that might potentially be used to remove MNP-like particles from the human body. Larger studies are required to validate this application.

Moreover, the plasma MNP levels pre- and post-apheresis need to be measured quantitatively, along with eluate MNPs, in more than one apheresis cycle. This will show how well these particles are being removed from blood and then from tissues. The clinical effects of MNP removal from the body also need confirmation, and it must be emphasized that such effects are not yet established by this preliminary research.