How Microplastics Impact Women’s Health – and What We Can Do
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Welcome to the WebMD Health Discovered podcast. I'm Dr. Neha Batok, WebMD's Chief Physician Editor for Health and Lifestyle Medicine. You're probably familiar with the term microplastics, those tiny, often invisible plastic particles permeating our food, water, and environment. But have you considered the impact that microplastics have on women's health, fertility, and

And what, if anything, we can do about it. In this episode, we're tackling the important questions. How are microplastics affecting our bodies during pregnancy? Could they be contributing to a rise in rates of high blood pressure disorders, infertility, and preterm birth?

And with the chemicals that are added to plastics, like bisphenols, phthalates, parabens, and forever chemicals, what can we realistically do to limit our exposure? Today, we'll take a step-by-step approach to the science behind how plastic in our daily lives—food packaging, water bottles, clothing, and more—affects

affects hormonal signaling, gut health, and pregnancy. We'll also address some of the biggest myths. Myths like, well, we still don't really know if plastic causes human harm. Or, well, plastic is just everywhere and there's nothing we can do to limit our exposure. When

Whether you're curious about microplastics' role in chronic health conditions or looking for strategies to protect yourself and your family, you'll come away from this episode with vital insights and ideas for a healthier future. First, let me introduce my guest, Dr. Jane Van Dis. Dr. Jane Van Dis is a board-certified OBGYN and founding member of PNP.

PSNAP, Physician and Scientist Network Addressing Plastic and Health, and founder of OBGYNs for Sustainable Future. She specializes in the care of women in inpatient obstetrics and gynecology. Welcome to the WebMD Health Discovered podcast, Dr. Van Dis.

Thank you so much for having me today. So before we jump into our conversation around microplastics and specifically their impact on women's health, I'd love to ask you about your own personal health discovery around microplastics, plastics, and how they impact our health. And what made you become so interested in this field?

I actually came to this research in part because I was seeing so many of my patients on labor and delivery being diagnosed with increased rates of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. So as a little background, I'm an OBGYN. I work

solely in the inpatient setting. So 95% of my practice is on labor and delivery, taking care of patients in triage, antepartum admissions, postpartum admissions, and then about 5%

our GYN emergencies through the emergency department. So I see a lot of patients who are coming into the hospital. And what I noticed was that they had chronic hypertension in pregnancy. They had gestational hypertension in pregnancy. They had preeclampsia and eclampsia. So there are times where my entire service, eight patients, for instance, all have some derivative of

of hypertensive disorder of pregnancy. And, you know, 30% of preeclampsia happens in the postpartum period. So we see a lot of postpartum patients who go home with their baby and then have to come back and get admitted for preeclampsia because of this condition. And so I've been...

an OBGYN for 22 years and I was looking around and I said, my goodness, what is causing this? None of the typical factors that are accounted for in the literature and that I've seen would point in a direction as to why so many people were being diagnosed with this. And so the more research I did, I began to understand that

A lot of chemicals are surrounding us and affecting our vascular systems. All of the blood vessels that line our body are usually the precursor, in addition obviously to the placenta, for these hypertensive disorders.

And so the more I looked, the more I found that increased exposure to plastics and the endocrine disrupting petrochemicals within the plastics was likely a very significant contributor that actually wasn't being talked about very much. I'd love to just take a step back and define microplastics.

Plastics, of course, comprise so many things that surround us. For instance, if you were to walk into your closet, probably somewhere between 60 and 70% of your clothing is made of polyester or nylon or some type of plastic. And every time you wash your clothing, tiny amounts of microplastics are being shed from your clothing and they make their way into the waterway. If you go to work in an office building or a hospital like us, you will see plastic water bottles everywhere.

everywhere, right? They're handed out like candy as it were. And then another huge source of microplastics is actually coming off of our tires. Our tires might have some rubber, like what we think of when we think of rubber coming from a rubber tree. But in fact, the tires are actually comprised of

majority microplastics. And every time the wheel spins, as it were, on the asphalt, tiny shards of microplastics are being shed from those tires. And then they are also making their way into the waterways. And then, of course, we've got all of the food contact plastic. You can't go into a grocery store these days and not see things like cucumbers, apples, grapes,

Basically, all of our food is wrapped in plastic. And so those plastics are actually making their way into our bodies. So the exposures are many. And it's actually maybe more helpful to think about what isn't shedding plastics than what is.

So help us understand a little bit about some of these differences. So what makes up plastic when we think about it? The microplastics, but also the chemical additives in plastics. Yeah, so this is really a great fork in the road, if you will. Scientists are obviously still in their nascent period of understanding the health effects of plastic. Having said that, what researchers found recently was they found

took patients who had atherosclerotic plaques, so little plaques in their carotid artery right here in the neck, and

What they did was they looked at the plaques under the microscope, and what they found was that patients who had increased rates of stroke and heart attack and even death actually had more microplastics in their plaque. So the question that you might ask is, do the tiny plastic particles in that plaque contribute to the stroke, heart attack, and death? Similarly, studies have shown that there are microplastic particles

In blood clots, blood clots can cause deep vein thrombosis. They can lead to pulmonary embolism. They can have catastrophic health effects as well. And what researchers find there too is that those thrombi, those blood clots that have more microplastics in them actually are more deleterious for the patients. But you might be suspect of that and you might say, well, Dr. Bandos, is it the actual plastic particles or is it the chemicals within the particles? And the answer is no.

We don't know. But what we do know is that it does seem that the more microplastic particles there are in a tissue or in a disease process, the greater the health impact. And what we do have, though, is actually over 7,000 studies looking at the health effects of some of the petrochemicals in the plastics.

And the big ones that we oftentimes talk about are four phenols, which is BPA, BPS, BPS, phthalates, which are put into plastic to make them more flexible, more soft and pliable. PFAS, which are the forever chemicals, 5% of US soil is now contaminated with PFAS.

And the problem with a lot of these petrochemicals is that when scientists go and look to do a control, they actually can't do a control because every body, every person has these chemicals within them. It's almost as if you have to do more observational studies as opposed to randomized controlled trials like what we're used to, in part because there isn't a person out there who doesn't have these chemicals involved.

in them. And I know that might be upsetting for a lot of people to think about. It's upsetting to me. And then the last one are the parabens. And these are in a lot of our cosmetics and hair care products and things like that. Tell us a little bit about where we're seeing them in the environment around us.

What scientists have discovered is that actually these microplastic chemicals, which have been manufactured since the 1940s, are actually found everywhere on Earth. So as high as Mount Everest and as low as the depths of the Mariana Trench. So there sort of isn't a habitat in the world, not Antarctica, not the Arctic Circle, that

doesn't have these plastics now as part of their ecosystem. I've seen it written that every raindrop now has PFAS in it. So there really isn't a place on earth that is untouched by these plastics. And it's interesting because researchers are looking at the fact that in certain places,

Where there is enough heat, let's say, in geothermal spots or in other places in the Earth that are very hot, the plastics actually become part of the sediment, part of the rock, as it were, part of the geology. And so this will be the plasticine, right? If there are people around 500 years from now, they will...

have a museum and they'll be able to look back at our time when, in addition to basalt and all the other types of geographic formations, we have layers of plastic. So we'll be able to find dinosaur fossils and then at a certain point we'll see human-caused plastic in our sediment. That's right. So we recognize that now plastics, microplastics are everywhere in the global environment.

How do they get into our bodies? So actually three ways. As you might imagine, we inhale microplastics. So those plastics that are coming off of the tires, while some of them run in rivulets off of the road, some also get aerosolized. And so we actually inhale microplastics

quite a few microplastics, and then we drink microplastics. There are microplastics in our water system. Remember, every time you wash your clothes, unless you solely have cotton clothes,

linen and wool microplastics from your clothing makes their way into the waterway and then obviously that water makes its way back into our bodies. There currently are not municipal water systems that are sheltering out microplastics.

Interestingly enough, France is the first country in January of this year, 2025, they actually required all new washing machines to have a microplastic filter on them. That's brilliant. We would hope that maybe that would catch on because actually our fabrics are a huge source of microplastics in the environment.

And then the last way some of these microplastics are entering our body is across our skin. So a lot of these plastics and petrochemicals are contained in products that we put on our skin. Products like sunscreen and lotion and foundation and makeup. All of these products have plastics in them. And then they also have these petrochemicals in them. And so they get absorbed across our skin. Can you talk a little bit about why?

where they've been found. So are they collecting in different organs? Can you talk a little bit about the evidence for where they're collecting? So some of the first studies coming out in 2021 showed they were in lung tissue. And then in that same year, researchers found them in meconium, which is the very first poop. It's not considered poop because it's sterile, but the very first poop that comes out of an infant right at birth.

And so that was found positive for microplastics. And so obviously that led researchers to assume that these microplastics were crossing the placenta, obviously, if the baby right after being born was positive for microplastics. And then sputum and blood and breast milk, liver, urine, veins, testes, heart tissue in 2023, kidneys,

And then a huge study that came out in 2024, which was actually the study that led my TikTok on microplastics and how to go viral, which was a study showing that there is a little over a teaspoon worth of plastic in the brain. And people were...

abhorred by the thought that there was plastic in their brain. And then just a couple weeks ago, we found plastic in both bone cartilage and bone marrow. So pretty much everywhere researchers look, they're finding microplastics in the human body. It's so interesting because when we think about our body, we think about very sensitive areas where the body has worked really hard to

to create a barrier because those are really important organs potentially that we want to protect. So the blood brain barrier, when we talk about our bone marrow, where we're, you know, creating new cells for our body. And these cells,

are systems that over evolution, we've worked really hard to protect from environmental exposures. So that is really kind of stunning to learn about how easily microplastics can infiltrate even these defense systems that we've set up.

What I will say is that the definition of a microplastic particle is anything less than five millimeters. But the size of the microplastic particle can obviously go down into the nanometer size. So that is not something that's visible to the naked eye. And there was a study that came out last year showing that the average one liter water bottle had over 250,000 nanoparticles in it.

Another study I read said that every time you twist the cap off of a plastic water bottle, about 50,000 microplastic particles fall into the water just with that motion, that abrasion of the plastic on plastic as you open that water bottle. So I think, you know, yes, microplastics include those that we can see with the naked eye, but the majority of these plastics are not visible to the naked eye.

The fact that meconium, that very first poop, has microplastics, and we have strong evidence that you've sort of laid out that the microplastics are getting through the placenta into the developing baby. So can you talk a little bit about the health risks that you started us off with in our conversation, from the hypertension in the mother to other downstream health impacts that are linked to microplastic exposure? Dr.

Well, one thing that I want listeners to understand is that every researcher who's interview webinar podcast that I've listened to, everyone points to this period in utero, you know, while we are developing as humans as prenatal.

the most important period of time in terms of exposure to environmental toxicants. And so what happens in utero actually has a more profound effect on that child's life than what happens after birth. And certainly in childhood, we know that children are more susceptible to environmental toxicants, for instance, than compared to an adult. But part of that is that babies in utero, they do not have

even as great of a blood-brain barrier as we do as adults. So these microplastics are crossing our blood-brain barriers, but in utero, that blood-brain barrier is even more porous, right? And so more of these chemicals have a more profound impact on a growing fetus than they do on a child or an adult.

Also, you know, their organ systems are developing rapidly. Their cells are dividing rapidly. So they are therefore more vulnerable to the damage that these plastics and the chemicals contained within are causing while they're in utero. And then also, they do not have fully developed systems to detoxify their bodies. So the liver isn't fully formed properly.

Obviously, their immune system isn't fully formed. And so, again, they can't rid themselves of these environmental exposures as well as a child or adult has. And then lastly, what I'll say is that they have a greater lifetime burden of exposure to these chemicals.

So in some ways, you know, a baby born today is born more polluted than a baby born 40 years ago, in part because there's just that much more plastic in the environment now than there was 40 years ago. So this means that this generation is at increased risk of all the things that we commonly talk about, like childhood obesity, childhood diabetes, cardiovascular disease,

If you look into the science, you can see the effects that these chemicals are having on our pregnancies. And yet we're not talking about it. We're not focusing on it. And in fact, we're talking and focusing on the wrong things. Can you talk a little bit about mechamism?

The health impacts really on women's health in general, from infertility to other women's health concerns that people might not recognize have had some sort of scientific link with microplastic or plastic exposure. We have heard increasing discussion about the infertility rate in the U.S.

And again, having been an OBGYN for 22 years, I've seen the number of couples struggling with infertility rise, right? I would say when I started OBGYN, it was maybe one in eight couples. And now it's one in five who struggles with infertility. And

I'm sure your viewers know, but just to reiterate, when it comes to infertility with a couple, about a third of the infertility can be attributed to a woman's infertility, about a third to the male infertility, and then about a third of the time, it's unknown why the couple is having infertility. But what we do know is that these chemicals, phthalates, parabens, and phenols,

absolutely have an effect on women's health. They increase the risk for endometriosis, which now one in nine to one in 10 women suffer from. They increase the incidence of polycystic ovarian syndrome, which as you might understand is a insulin resistance and is associated with a lot of endocrine components. So it would be

It would be natural, therefore, to think that these endocrine-disrupting chemicals are affecting a disease like polycystic ovarian syndrome. And then also even fibroids, which can impact fertility as well. So all three of those, which combined probably have an incidence rate up close to 1 in 2 to 1 in 3 women in the U.S. being affected by phthalates, parabens, and phenols, these chemicals within our plastic environment.

And then we've also seen a lot of research coming out looking at the effects of phthalates on sperm count. So you'll see a lot of people currently in our government talking about birth rates and how the birth rates are falling. And some of that is due to people's desire not to have children, but some of it is due to struggles with infertility. And again, I would love to see that conversation, turn the camera back and focus on these petrochemicals rather than births.

blaming the individuals for their infertility. I'd love to sort of follow up on one more study when we're talking about preterm births and microplastics found in placentas. Can you talk a little bit about that piece? Yeah.

Yeah, so this was the research published in January of 2024 by Dr. Trisande from NYU. And I actually interviewed him for my webinar series in our channel, OBGYNs for a Sustainable Future. He looked at over 5,000 mother fetal dyads and he measured...

their urine concentration of phthalate metabolites. So when we are exposed to a phthalate inside of a plastic, our body breaks down that phthalate into component parts. And those metabolites, those component parts are then measured in the urine. And what he found in that study was that

About 10% of all preterm births, he surmised, could be potentially due to elevated exposures of phthalates. So in the urine of those women who had phthalate exposure, there was a significantly increased risk for a preterm birth.

And then on top of that study, there was a study that was just published in January of this year. And I'm hopefully going to have this author on my channel as well. But what these researchers did was they looked at 175 percenters and they measured...

the amount of microplastics and phthalates in the placentas. And now what the researchers thought they would find was that the longer a gestation was, the longer a pregnancy was, the greater the increase of microplastics in the placenta. And you think about that over time, obviously there's increased deposition of those microplastics in the placenta. But in fact, what researchers found was the

opposite. What they found was that in those women who delivered preterm, there were more microplastics in their placentas than those who went to term. And more microplastics means more phthalate exposure. So this was fascinating and it really added to the literature. But I think what we're gathering from both of these really important studies is that the exposure is having clinical effects on our pregnancies, including our preterm birth rate.

That's really, really important. So in this segment, we're going to spend a little time debunking misconceptions, myths that folks might have around microplastics and health. So first is that what you hear often is, well, studies show that there may be links. We still don't have enough information to really make this connection yet. We're going to need decades more of research. But at this

At this point, we really don't have the evidence to say that this exposure is causing these downstream health impacts. Thank you for this question. Because I actually lecture at universities and departments of OBGYN across the country.

Sometimes the first question that I get after I provide my lecture is, Dr. Vandis, aren't you confusing correlation with causation? And it's meant to be a little bit of a stab, right? But the fact of the matter is we as physician scientists, as physicians, we're trained on this idea of a randomized controlled trial as being the pinnacle of research achievement and

It's only when we have that pure kind of data that we can, with 100% certainty, state that something is true. And obviously, we are trained on that type of data as regards the pharmaceutical industry and how new medicines and new therapies are brought to bear in our fields of medicine.

And so there is a natural skepticism regarding observational studies. But as your listeners might apprehend if they're putting two and two together, we will never have a randomized controlled trial of a human who does not have these exposures versus a human who does. So we are left with observational studies looking at

the penetration or how much of a plastic chemical that a person has in their body, whether it's urine, whether it's blood, whether it's on a pathological specimen, and then drawing inferences. And obviously, we need studies that have large enough cohorts that we can say that there is statistical significance, you know, that are well-powered.

But having said that, the observational studies that have been done so far are all pointing in the same direction. I actually published with some colleagues here at the University of Rochester a review study looking at EDCs, endocrine disrupting chemicals, and pregnancy. And, you know, we started out with over 1,700 studies.

I believe a little over 100 made it into our review. And many, like me, have done these types of reviews and meta-analyses. Even there is one umbrella review, which is a meta-analysis of a meta-analysis showing the health effects of these chemicals on our bodies.

So I personally have sufficient evidence to act. And I hope that my colleagues who look at the studies as well feel that there is sufficient evidence to act. Because the fact of the matter is, none of the regulatory bodies, not the EPA, not the FDA, and not the USDA, they are not currently protecting us and our health from these chemicals anymore.

So, you know, having me on your show is a possibility that more people become educated, not only that they can maybe take some steps to protect their own health and the health of their family, but so that they can become aware. And maybe if enough of us do raise our voices, maybe we can get some regulation in place to help to protect us. I don't think we need to wait decades in order for us to, number one, protect ourselves and our homes, and number two, to raise the alarm.

Myth number two, if we're still trying to figure out whether it's the chemicals in the plastic or the plastic itself, why don't we just have substitutions for some of these dangerous chemicals and continue going about our lives because plastic does fill such an important role in our societies?

Yeah, I'm not going to be here to tell you that obviously, when you wrap something in plastic, it weighs less. And when you ship it across the Pacific, that it doesn't save emissions because the packaging is so lightweight. We have a lot of benefits from that plastic. But

But having said that, to your point about substitutions, unfortunately what we've seen from industry is that they have no problem substituting chemicals that they know are just as harmful as the chemical that they've substituted. And the perfect example of that is bisphenol A. I had my twins in 2008 and at the time I looked for anything that said BPA free.

And I genuinely thought as an educated professional mom, mom-to-be, that I was going to be protecting myself and my unborn babies and my babies after they were born from bisphenol A. And the fact is, is that the manufacturers substituted bisphenol S,

or bisphenol S, as in Frank, for bisphenol A. So the chemical was the same. And in some cases, the substitution is more harmful than that chemical that they've substituted for. It was very disingenuous. And I think still large sections of the public don't know that BPA-free doesn't mean that it's phenol-free. It's a tactic that industry has used to try and trick the public.

And I think it's very sinister. Again, no one's regulating these companies when they do substitutions like that.

And then the last myth, and I hope this will get us into what we can do about this, is just that, you know, plastic and these chemicals are everywhere and there's just nothing we can do about it. Yeah. And that's very, very common to feel overwhelmed. And I oftentimes feel like the audiences, after they listen to one of my lectures, they feel overwhelmed as well. Hashtag normal. But after you feel those feelings, there are many things that you can do to protect your own health and the health of your family.

So, you know, one of the things that we talked about was the amount of plastics in the water. So you can get a filter and it could be an expensive reverse osmosis filter for the whole house, but it doesn't have to be. I don't have one of those filters.

I simply have a filter that sits in my refrigerator that I refill every few days. And in this way, these filters are good enough that they are filtering out not only the microplastics, but also the PFAS. There are filters out there that can filter out these deleterious chemicals.

So not drinking water out of plastic bottles is one of the number one ways that you can decrease your exposure and your family's exposure. But that's going to include, unfortunately, not drinking beverages out of aluminum cans either because those aluminum cans are also all lined with plastic.

So it really means decreasing your beverage exposure to plastics. Some other ways that you can decrease are limiting your exposure to certain foods. So the more processed a food is, likely the more plastic particles it has absorbed.

Some of the food with the most plastic in it are going to be seafood, specifically shrimp, in part because of the waters where the shrimp are harvested are oftentimes more polluted with plastic. And then the processing of the shrimp exposes those shrimp to more plastic. Those are going to be one of the foods that have the highest amounts of plastic. The other is to eat a more plant-based diet. Studies have shown that the plastic consumption

is in a battle, as it were, with your gut microbiome. So we know that our gut microbiome is a place that our immune system functions in order to rid ourselves of dangerous things in our food, right? And so the more whole food plant-based items that you eat, the better your gut microbiome is at eliminating the plastic exposure that you do have. So we see a lot of plastic products

exposure coming through meats, so pork and beef and chicken, those people who have a more whole food plant-based diet actually have fewer microplastics and their gut microbiome is better able to remove plastics from the gut.

So those would be some of the best ways that I know. The other that I'll mention is vacuuming or using a wet mop frequently. There are a lot of microplastic particles in dust. And so if you can, keeping the dust down in your house is going to decrease your inhalation exposure to plastics. And you've also mentioned sort of three big ways that you can increase the transfer of microplastics into whatever we're eating. So heat.

the acidity of the food and the fat content. Can you talk a little bit about those exposures? Yeah. One really fascinating study came out in October of 2022, and researchers here looked at fast food and the concentration of phthalates in the fast foods. And the researcher said it was interesting because actually the EPA or the FDA, I forget which one, had said that the Happy Meal toys

could not have phthalates added to them because a lot of young children and babies would put Happy Meal toys in their mouth and therefore, you know, the babies were being exposed to the phthalates. So they removed the phthalates from the toys, but what the researchers found was that actually there was a lot of phthalates in the actual food at these fast food restaurants.

And now, you know, some of it is due to the processing of the food before it makes its way to the restaurant. And then some of it was probably due to the fact that restaurant workers have to wear polyvinyl gloves and that the handling of the hot food with the gloves, they're

There was shedding of the polyvinyl chloride molecules and the chemicals contained within into the food, you know, just from the handling. So the best way to decrease your exposure is to make your food at home. You know how it's made. You know whether or not you're using a plastic cutting board. That's a no-no. Don't use plastic cutting boards. But you can control exposure.

your exposure much, much better if you're cooking at home. Well, we appreciate you so much for educating us today. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Some of my key takeaways from this episode are that microplastics have been detected everywhere.

everywhere in nature. And studies show that they're in our bodies too, in our lungs, blood, and even the first stool that a baby has after it's born. Women's health is uniquely impacted by

by microplastics. The chemical additives in plastic like bisphenols, phthalates, PFAS, what we also call forever chemicals, have been associated with rising rates of conditions like preeclampsia, preterm birth, endometriosis, PCOS, and even fertility challenges.

Because we know that microplastics have been found in the placenta, and we also know that the fetal blood-brain barrier is more permeable during fetal development, prenatal exposures to microplastics and chemical additives may have an impact not only on maternal health, but also a child's health for years to come.

In order to make an impact, we've got to pay attention to our daily habits. Heating or storing food in plastic, drinking from plastic bottles or plastic-lined cans, and wearing or washing synthetic clothing can all increase microplastic exposure. We've also got to know that individual and system-level solutions exist.

Filtering drinking water, choosing glass or stainless steel over plastic, swapping plastic cutting boards for wood, reducing our fast fashion purchases, or advocating for stricter environmental regulations can all help lower microplastic pollution and protect our overall health. To find out more information about Dr. Jane Van Dis, make sure to check out our show notes.

Thank you so much for listening. Please take a moment to follow, rate and review this podcast on your favorite listening platform. If you'd like to send me an email about topics you're interested in or questions for future guests, please send me a note at WebMD podcast at WebMD.net. This is Dr. Neha Bhattach for the WebMD Health Discovered podcast.