Plastic pollution and could it be linked to an increase in incidence of Crohn's disease among children

[J100]

I came across this article and I have long thought about it. Is it possible that increase in plastic pollution and the fact that it has entered our food chain is causing an increase in the incidence of IBD in children??

It is a hypothesis but unfortunately I don't think any of the researchers have tried to take this further. Or maybe I haven't come across any literature on this topic. But either way, plastic pollution is harming us in many ways that we are not even aware of...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-02968-x
https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/...y-bowel-diseases-children-australia/103902842

 

[J100]

@kiny , @Scipio , @Maya142 , @my little penguin - Any research that you may have come across on this, please share.

 

[J100]

Another example of plastics in human body.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/23/health/plastics-in-brain-wellness/index.html
https://www.msn.com/en-au/health/ot...hocking-impact-on-the-human-brain/ar-AA1plSG7
https://truthout.org/articles/plast...brains-scientists-say-its-a-global-emergency/
If this is the amount in human brain then what does it mean for our intestines??

 

[Scipio]

Any research that you may have come across on this, please share.

I haven't seen anything big linking microplastics to IBD, but it's early days yet. It seems like research in the medical effects of microplastics is just getting started.

One thing that is clear though is that, if microplastics promote or contribute to IBD development, they are not the sole cause, because Crohn's disease has been around a lot longer than plastics have.

 

[J100]

I haven't seen anything big linking microplastics to IBD, but it's early days yet. It seems like research in the medical effects of microplastics is just getting started.

One thing that is clear though is that, if microplastics promote or contribute to IBD development, they are not the sole cause, because Crohn's disease has been around a lot longer than plastics have.

Hi @Scipio - Thanks for your response. I agree that Crohn's has been around longer but since Crohn's can have multiple reasons and my hypothesis is that since the incidence of Crohn's disease among young kids is growing at a fast (or alarming) rate, it is highly possible that because microplastics are in the food chain and they enter the body of adults or the mother who is still breast feeding her child and from there it can enter the child. Maybe there is one more factor apart from microplastics. Since children have very sensitive intestines, the effect is Crohn's. If a university could carry out research and prove causality, it will be great. Either way, research like this should be very useful. And microplastics are a scourge and no one yet fully understands the damage these have caused.

 

[my little penguin]

When it comes to kids and crohns
The research really isn’t there
A few places in the world are collecting general data for very early onset (nih is one )
But most are not
The majority of research is causes of adult crohns from environmental factors seen from adults when they were children /babies and those causes change every few years .
I doubt micro plastics are the cause in infants /young children
I think their disease is different than adult crohns and needs its own investigations/disease name.
Since pediatric disease for crohns is rare
Those dx under age 10 (2% of all pediatric crohns patients ) is even rarer
Infants /toddlers make up small number of those tiny 2% research is beyond limited .
There are not enough infants /young children dx to conduct studies .

 

[Scipio]

Hi @Scipio - Thanks for your response. I agree that Crohn's has been around longer but since Crohn's can have multiple reasons and my hypothesis is that since the incidence of Crohn's disease among young kids is growing at a fast (or alarming) rate, it is highly possible that because microplastics are in the food chain and they enter the body of adults or the mother who is still breast feeding her child and from there it can enter the child. Maybe there is one more factor apart from microplastics. Since children have very sensitive intestines, the effect is Crohn's. If a university could carry out research and prove causality, it will be great. Either way, research like this should be very useful. And microplastics are a scourge and no one yet fully understands the damage these have caused.

What you posit sounds plausible, but as I said, it's early days and not much research on the topic has been done so far.

However, it is unlikely that any research could be conducted in humans that could prove causality. The type of research that perhaps could be done would be to show that people with high levels of microplastics in their system have a significantly higher rate of developing IBD compared with people with low levels of microplastics. But this kind of observational study can only prove an association between the plastics and the disease. It cannot prove causality.

To prove causality they would need to conduct a placebo-controlled, double-blind, prospective, interventional study. And such a study could never be done in this day and age, since administering potentially-harmful microplastics to patients to see if it increases the incidence of new cases or worsens existing Crohn's would be highly unethical.

At best, the observational studies could be performed and the results (if positive) could be used to justify studies into developing methods to somehow reduce the exposure to microplastics with the hope of reducing the disease.

 

[Delta_hippo]

It seems to me there are so many new developments that are potentially damaging to the gut and the safest plan would be to try to limit our children’s exposure as much as possible in case they are a contributing factor
Microplastics
Sweeteners
Emulsifiers
High sugar diets
Food that has been sprayed with pesticides etc
Dirty water (you’d think that would be unlikely but we had two recent episodes here in the UK of disease outbreaks linked to failure by the local water company to ensure tap water is drinkable)
You could drive yourself mad trying to avoid it all and deciding where to draw the line is difficult because organic food etc is expensive but so is having Crohn’s
On which note - I need to replace a saucepan and frying pan soon- any views on which are least toxic?

 

[my little penguin]

@Delta_hippo
We use “green pan” brand due to the least harmful metals etc…
But that changes daily …

 

[J100]

What you posit sounds plausible, but as I said, it's early days and not much research on the topic has been done so far.

However, it is unlikely that any research could be conducted in humans that could prove causality. The type of research that perhaps could be done would be to show that people with high levels of microplastics in their system have a significantly higher rate of developing IBD compared with people with low levels of microplastics. But this kind of observational study can only prove an association between the plastics and the disease. It cannot prove causality.

To prove causality they would need to conduct a placebo-controlled, double-blind, prospective, interventional study. And such a study could never be done in this day and age, since administering potentially-harmful microplastics to patients to see if it increases the incidence of new cases or worsens existing Crohn's would be highly unethical.

At best, the observational studies could be performed and the results (if positive) could be used to justify studies into developing methods to somehow reduce the exposure to microplastics with the hope of reducing the disease.

@Scipio - thanks for your response. I agree that it will be hard to show causality but even if the studies show the level of microplastics in the colon, then it will show that the microplastics are dangerous. I don't know what is the way to do it but one thought is assuming during colonoscopy, when a biopsy is done, can the scientists detect the level of microplastics. It will be a start and they keep records of it. And if the level of microplastics keep on increasing in the colonoscopies over the years, it will be one other reason for scientists to show probability. Somehow, I am fixated that this hypothesis is the reason behind an increase in incidence of Crohn's among children.

 

[kiny]

Peyer's patches are exclusive to the ileum and are most active during puberty. The very earliest endoscopic signs of crohn's disease seems to consistently match inflammation of lymphoid follicles.

So the main suspects end up being pathogens that enter through the dome-like M cells of these peyer's patches.

But another suspect ends up being particles, like Al, Ti and Si, derived from food, that would deposit at the base of peyer's patches and be present in immune cells. And I assume also plastic particles, that I assume, if small enough, would also enter through peyer's patches. Is EN effective because it limits all these particles in the fecal stream? Does EN contain less of these particles? I don't know.

Age of onset of crohn's disease would then be tied to deposition of these particles at the base of these peyer's patches, and we would have developed a strong immune response to these particles due to consistent exposure, eventually leading to a disease state around puberty when these peyers's patches are most active.

I do have my doubts a bit about this theory regarding plastics though. EN might limit exposure to some inert particles, but it would not stop you from ingesting plastic microparticles which are present in bottled and tap water. The theory makes more sense for ingestion of particles used as food additives that are neither present in potable water nor EN. But the idea that exposure to small particles in the fecal stream are triggering inflammation is certainly not a bad theory.

 

[J100]

I came across this article in CNN

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/16/health/food-packaging-chemical-toxins-study-wellness/index.html
The whole point about this thread was to initiate discussion about environmental factors with plastics being one and other chemical toxins. Western societies in general are exposed to a higher level of toxins.