Macrophages are cells that take care of stuff like eating splinters that you can't get out.
What if there was something we could eat that basically super-powered our macrophages to to it for us? They already eat the microplastics but they just sit inside them.[1] Digesting them might be poisonous I guess ...
What would that be though? The macrophages would have to be supplied with the correct chemical? Seems like it would be easier to inject a fungus that can co exist with our cells. I recently read about Lichen in Sheldrake’s Entangled Life and how Lichen is not a single species or even in a single kingdom because it consists of a community of fungus and algae. In the same way that our cells encapsulated mitochondria, I wonder if the macrophages could work well with a (genetically modified?) fungi strain that could digest the plastic. I know this is far out and I’m hoping an expert on the subject could tell me if this has ever been discussed. Most people see fungus as a health threat but it’s an entire kingdom that we’ve only scratched the surface of understanding. If I were to go back to school I would probably study mycology.
This is not a bad idea. The lysosomes in cells use some fairly intense chemicals to hydrolyse biopolymers, and macrophages produce oxidants like hypochlorite. But then, inflammation is a risk factor for cancer, perhaps because of side effects of those oxidants.
Yeah I hope I don’t give anyone ideas. You could make a lot of money selling mushroom supplements that supposedly contain the same fungus studied in this research.
I don't think I'd want my internals exposed to the stuff fungi have to excrete to break down the fibers. Fenton chemistry is used to clean lab glassware, I think.
Well microplastics are micro after all, so maybe the byproduct would only be present in small amounts that the body can absorb? Chemotherapy is rough on the body but if the end result is that the cancer is removed it’s generally seen as a valid trade off. Unfortunately I’m not very knowledgeable about chemistry.
Chemotherapy is rough on the body because it's specifically targeted to disrupt the process of growing new cells, destroying them when they form. Your body produces new cells much slower than cancer does (by definition), so it can weather the poison longer (in theory).
There's no reason to expect this to be the analogy to hold for reactive chemicals capable of decomposing organic polymers, which are generally tougher to decompose than our also-organic cells.
Good point. Whenever I think about how much I'm poisoning myself with plastics or breathing exhaust or whatever I remind myself what I did last Friday night and it's like ... yeah this pales in comparison.
Well if you’re drinking heavily or something similar yes it might be worse than microplastics. But the scary thing about microplastics is that they accumulate with time, and we still don’t know what effects they’re having on the human body. I find that to be frightening in a very existential way, similar to thawing permafrost or nuclear Armageddon, lol. You can’t escape it, and statistically it’s probably ruining millions of people’s health across the world.
That's a good point. You can escape vaping questionable hemp products a lot easier than you can avoid being a walking, talking heavy metal filter for the local coal plant.
> Dietary cellulose is an insoluble fiber and consists exclusively of unbranched β-1,4-linked glucose monomers. It is the major component of plant cell walls and thus a prominent fiber in grains, vegetables and fruits. Whereas the importance of cellulolytic bacteria for ruminants was described already in the 1960s, it still remains enigmatic whether the fermentation of cellulose has physiological effects in monogastric mammals. [6–11] Under experimental conditions, it has been shown that the amount of dietary cellulose influences the richness of the colonic microbiota, the intestinal architecture, metabolic functions and susceptibility to colitis. [12,13] Moreover, mice fed a cellulose-enriched diet were protected from experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) through changes in their microbial and metabolic profiles and reduced numbers of pro-inflammatory T cells.
