Germana Carillo Be aware! If you use plastic containers in your microwave, you should know the results of this study
This might be the quickest method of heating up food and drinks, but it could also be a shortcut to consuming large amounts of minute plastic particles. Such is the implication of a study done on microwave oven use a few months ago.
According to the scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, plastic baby food containers can leach an incredibly huge number of plastics particles, sometimes upwards of 2 billion nanoplastics and 4 million microplastics per square centimeter of container.
An astonishing finding given that the Nebraska team also found a few days after exposing the three-quarter embryonic kidney cells cultured, these were already dead.
The study
Testing started in 2021, and many experiments were performed on two varieties of polypropylene baby food containers and one reusable polyethylene bag accepted by the FDA.
The team prepared glasses of deionized water and 3% acetic acid to simulate a variety of food items including dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and other relatively acidic consumables. After heating them for three minutes at full power in a 1,000-watt microwave, they tested the liquids for micro and nanoplastics-the former defined as particles at least 1/1,000th of a millimeter in diameter, the latter even smaller.
The amount of specific particles produced by microwaving depended on some factors, including plastic container type and liquid it held. As a result, it came to light that babies who drink water microwaved in plastic containers and that is meant for them, and young children who consume dairy products that are microwaved, have a higher exposure to these concentrations.
The estimated daily intake of 20.3 nanograms per kilogram per day for infants who consume water that has been heated in the microwave was the highest of all exposure model results, while the consumption of microwaved dairy products from polypropylene containers by toddlers resulted in an estimated daily intake of 22.1 nanograms per kilogram per day. They note that there is extensive plastic nanoparticle and microparticle dispersion even when the containers are exposed on store shelves at room temperature or stored in the refrigerator.
Finally, concentrations of plastic particles leached by the containers were exposed to the embryonic kidney cells by the researchers. They exposed the cells to concentrations that infants and toddlers could accumulate in a few days or from many sources, instead of just adding up the number released by one container.
Whereas after two days, only 23% of the kidney cells treated with the highest concentrations survived, a far higher mortality rate than that which has been observed in past studies into the toxicity of micro and nanoplastics. The team suspects that the kidney cells may be more sensitive to those kinds of particles, compared to other cell types that might have been studied.
The Solution? Use the Microwave Less, Especially for Baby Bottles
A possible solution could be to make use of the microwave as less as possible, especially when heating up babies’ bottles.
