Study links microplastics with the rise in deadly cancer cases

Résumé détaillé

For the past couple of decades, doctors and researchers have monitored rising colon cancer rates among young people with concern. In the United States, colorectal cancer rates…

The ubiquitous foam cup has been linked with rising cancer diagnoses in young people. Photo / Getty Images

For the past couple of decades, doctors and researchers have monitored rising colon cancer rates among young people with concern. In the United States, colorectal cancer rates increased by 3% every year among adults ages 20 to 49 between 2013 and 2022.

Researchers have suspected highly processed foods, toxins in the gut and sedentary lifestyles. Now there is a new suspect: microplastics.

A study released last month from researchers at Central South University in China found that long-term exposure to polystyrene nanoplastics – the plastic that is used in Styrofoam cups and containers – promoted tumour growth in mice that were genetically modified to be predisposed to colon cancer for research purposes.

The nanoplastics, researchers found, built up in the colon, disrupting the cells lining the gut and damaging the balance of gut bacteria. The mice exposed to nanoplastics had more tumours and more severe tumours than those that were not exposed.

The research joins a growing number of studies that have found hints that microplastics and nanoplastics could be contributing to the onset and progression of colorectal cancer.

A study published last year found more microplastics were concentrated in the tumours of patients with colorectal cancer compared with healthy nearby tissue.

“My intuition says it’s a major factor,” said Lorne Hofseth, professor and associate dean for research in the College of Pharmacy at University of South Carolina.

Part of the suspicion stems from the timing of the rise in colon cancers among young people. Epidemiologists began to identify the increase in the 1990s. Because colorectal cancers typically take around 20 years to develop from exposure to disease, researchers are looking for a risk factor that rose in the 1970s and continued into the present day.

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