People consuming microplastics could be the reason for a rise in deadly super bugs according to new research.
Microplastics are the tiny pieces which break away from everyday items such as food packaging and shopping bags, and they can then easily enter the human body.
Increasing pollution has led to more microplastics being in the environment and they have been linked to a whole series of illnesses in humans including cancer, dementia and heart disease.
As they are so small they can easily enter the food chain and move around the body through the blood supply. The World Health Organisation states: “Microplastics are ubiquitous in the environment and have been detected in a broad range of concentrations in marine water, wastewater, fresh water, food, air and drinking-water, both bottled and tap water.”
And now researchers at the University of Oxford appear to have found a link between microplastics and resistance to antibiotics by bacteria. Superbugs have been on the rise with their ability to fight off all but the strongest antibiotics which is believed to be down to the drugs being overprescribed.
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Scientists now believe that the bugs are entering human bodies with the microplastics which is making them “up to 200 times” more resistant to antibiotics. The research has been carried out by the Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research and Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in China where a new paper has told how it was already known that bacteria would mutate with the plastics. But what is surprising is the extent of the threat from microplastics.
It states: “Microplastics, particles less than 5 nanometres long, are ubiquitous in the environment. Microplastics present in the environment are known to act as a platform for bacteria to attach to and exchange genes with their neighbors via plasmids, a process called horizontal gene transfer.
“This new research published in Environment International has shown that the presence of microplastics in the mating culture increases the frequency of plasmid conjugation, the movement of plasmids carrying antibiotic resistance genes between bacteria, by up to 200 times compared to control samples with no microplastics.”
Professor Timothy Walsh, Director of Biology, Ineos Oxford Institute, who co-authored the paper said: “Given the lack of global plastic waste governance and the increasing amount of microplastics infiltrating all aspects of human activity, these findings are very concerning. At the individual level we need to reduce, recycle and reuse – at the global level we need robust plastic waste governance policies.”
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