AMA #67: Microplastics, PFAS, and phthalates: understanding health risks and a framework for minimizing exposure and mitigating risk

**Peter Attia** (0:10)
Hey, everyone, welcome to a sneak peek, Ask Me Anything or AMA episode of the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. At the end of this short episode, I'll explain how you can access the AMA episodes in full, along with a ton of other membership benefits we've created. Or you can learn more now by going to peterattiamd.com/subscribe. So without further delay, here's today's sneak peek of the Ask Me Anything episode.
Welcome to Ask Me Anything AMA episode 67 For today's AMA, we're going to focus on something that's gotten a lot of attention lately in the news, online, social media. And as a result, we've received an endless stream of questions, not only from our audience, but also from our patients. And that topic is microplastics and all other accompanying chemicals, such as BPAs, PFASs and phthalates. Given the interest, we decided to dedicate an AMA to this topic. In this conversation, we dive deeply into what we know and what we don't know about these chemicals, why they seem to appear all of a sudden everywhere, how we're exposed to them, how much exposure we have, and how dangerous they may or may not be to our health. Ultimately, and perhaps most importantly, I think, we propose a framework for how someone can think about avoiding and mitigating exposure to these chemicals. If you are a subscriber and you want to watch the full video of this podcast, you can find it on the Show Notes page. If you're not a subscriber, you can watch a sneak peek of the video on our YouTube page. So without further delay, I hope you enjoy AMA 67

**SPEAKER_2** (1:54)
Peter, thanks for coming back for another AMA. How are you doing?

**Peter Attia** (1:58)
Good. Thank you for having me.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:59)
Before we get started today, quick question, do you have a beverage in front of you?

**Peter Attia** (2:03)
I do.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:04)
What type of glass is that in? Is it a plastic? Is it glass?

**Peter Attia** (2:09)
It is plastic.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:10)
Okay. Interesting then. That will be interesting for this AMA, which is going to cover one topic, which is something that seems to be growing in interest. We've been getting a ton of questions on, ton of conversation online. That's microplastics and other chemicals, such as BPAs, PFAS and phthalates. So what we did, gathered all these questions that have come through, pull them together, and are ultimately going to try and help people understand, should they be worried? What should they be worried about? What's dangerous? Based on all that, what can they do about it? Before we get started, anything you want to add.

**Peter Attia** (2:51)
I think there's actually a lot I need to say before we dive into this for context. So, I'll preface maybe by saying the following. Obviously, people who are regular listeners of the AMA can appreciate that these are not off-the-cuff remarks that we make here, and we put a lot of work into doing this. When I sit up here and do these AMAs, I'm doing them based on the work that me and a team of analysts have done for usually about a month in preparation for them. I think it would be safe to say that in the six years we've been doing this, or is it seven or eight? Now, I've lost track. To date, at least, this will go down as the AMA that has required the most work, that has probably generated the most swear words, and probably resulted in the secretion of the most adrenergic compounds from the adrenal glands. In other words, this has been a royal pain in the ass to prepare for. And as recently as last night at 10 o'clock, I was e-mailing you saying, what the F? Why are we doing this? It's a never-ending morass of information, most of which is incomplete. There's so much I could say on this. And then the most wonderful thing happened, which always happens. Anyone has experienced this, if they think back to being in college. Even the night before the exam, you're like, I don't know what the hell is going on. And the best advice is usually just go to bed, get a good night's sleep, get up, nice and early, fresh cup of coffee. And I think that sort of happened this morning. Me and a couple of the other analysts went to bed, got up this morning, and all of a sudden, I just had more clarity about, in my words, how to land the plane. And I took to writing a couple of pages out, and I think I've got kind of a sensible way to make sense of something that is incredibly noisy. So what I'm gonna say at the outset is, if you are listening to this thinking that there is a punchline and a one word answer, I'm gonna spare you the disappointment. This is a very nuanced topic. If I could answer this in a word, I promise you I would, and I would never try to go through the 75 pages of notes that our team has assembled to help me think about this topic. I swear to you, there are a hundred things I'd rather be doing right now than going through this. However, it is important in an area where there is so much uncertainty, so much asymmetry and such complete and incomplete information that we have to understand the boundary conditions so that we can each make a reasonably informed decision.