What to eat (and avoid) in a world full of plastic | Dr. Sabine Donnai

**Jonathan** (0:00)
Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health.
Plastic, a miracle product, or so we were told when it was first introduced. In the 1960s, the petrochemical industry created 15 million tons of plastic per year. 50 years later in 2014, that figure had risen to 311 million tons, an increase of over 20 times. And our use of plastics just keeps increasing, forecasts to triple again by 2050 There's just one problem. Plastic never goes away. Our bodies can't break it down. Even bacteria can't decompose it. Over time, plastic just breaks into ever smaller pieces. Eventually, these pieces are small enough to enter your blood and make their way around your body, settling in your organs, your tissues and your brain. Today, I'm joined by Dr. Sabine Donnai, a senior doctor and world authority on proactive health management around plastics. As part of her practice, Sabine screens for microplastics in patients' blood. I'm also joined by Dr. Federica Amati, ZOE's head nutritionist and a research fellow at the School of Public Health at Imperial College London. Microplastics are an interest area for Federica, so she's joining me today to co-host and learn more from Sabine. Together, we explore the impact of microplastics on our health and what you can do to reduce your risk today. Sabine, thank you so much for joining me today.

**Dr. Sabine Donnai** (1:47)
It's a pleasure to be here.

**Jonathan** (1:49)
Federica, this is fun because you're going to be my co-host today.

**Dr. Federica Amati** (1:52)
I'm super excited about this one, Jonathan. Can't wait.

**Jonathan** (1:55)
So Sabine, we always like to kick off our show with a rapid-fire Q&A, which comes from questions from our listeners. You're willing to give that a go?

**Dr. Sabine Donnai** (2:04)
Absolutely.

**Jonathan** (2:05)
You can say yes or no or if you have to, one-sentence answer. Super. All right. I'm going to kick us off. Have I got plastic in my brain right now?

**Dr. Sabine Donnai** (2:16)
Yes.

**Dr. Federica Amati** (2:17)
Mine next. Does my food contain little bits of plastic?

**Jonathan** (2:21)
Yes. Is plastic production contributing to climate change?

**Dr. Sabine Donnai** (2:25)
Of course.

**Dr. Federica Amati** (2:27)
Can microplastics impact heart health?

**Dr. Sabine Donnai** (2:30)
Absolutely.

**Jonathan** (2:32)
Finally, what's the most common misconception you hear about microplastics?

**Dr. Sabine Donnai** (2:36)
That it's all about the environment rather than about our health.

**Jonathan** (2:40)
It is about our health?

**Dr. Sabine Donnai** (2:41)
It's entirely about our health.

**Jonathan** (2:44)
I'm really looking forward to getting into this. We've not discussed this at all. But before we get into the details of the microplastics, how big is this plastic problem? How much plastic are we producing and is this any different than it was 50 years ago?

**Dr. Sabine Donnai** (2:59)
Oh, la, la. Okay. Yes. You're ready for this.
Plastics really came only into the world about 1950s, really, when we started talking about plastics, when I think it was Bacalite that was first produced. Then 1960s, it really exploded. It was actually 1960s, I think, that was the first time that we appreciated the environmental impact of plastics. Now, of course, it's just gone completely out of hand. Okay, I think it's 2014, something, that we only really started talking about microplastics and the impact on the environment, not even realizing the impact on our health, which clearly we're going to be talking about today. The policies only really started coming in, I think, last year. I'm a clinician, so I'm not environmental. I know what's in our bodies and we'll talk about it for sure. But if I see how much we actually come in contact with, as a human, you can only imagine how much there is in the world.

**Dr. Federica Amati** (4:01)
Since 2000, the amount of plastic production in the world has doubled. So even though we've known this problem for a long time, production is still going up. It's expected to triple in the next 20 years. So it's a real problem and there's a huge lobby behind plastics, which pushes this narrative that plastics are necessary.

**Jonathan** (4:18)
So just the raw amount of plastic that's going into the world is just going up and up. Can you talk about this term microplastics?
What is a microplastic? How is it formed?

**Dr. Sabine Donnai** (4:31)
There are two types of microplastics. The ones that are created small. You've got small little beads of, I mean, anything that is smaller than five millimetres is considered as a microplastic. It really goes from five millimetres down to nanometres clearly. So you have your primary ones which are formed small little beads that we can use in cosmetics and in factories and things like that. Then you have those that actually are produced as a bigger plastic, but then becomes a microplastic because of erosion, because of whether it's chemical, whether it's heat, whether it is just the degradation of the plastic itself, becomes smaller and smaller and smaller particles. That's what we're dealing with now. When people often think about plastic, they think, I can see plastic, and of course we can. What we can't see is the degradation of that plastic, because plastic is not inert. It takes a very long time, but there's small little pieces that actually gets erased of that plastic all the time, and that's what microplastics are.