The Emerging Link Between Microplastics and Heart Disease

—Carol Yepes—Getty Images The tiny pieces of plastic that flake off of water bottles ; rinse out of polyester blouses ; and chip off of cutting boards , coffee pods , and myriad other objects don’t just build up in the environment. Scientific evidence is suggesting that microplastics also accumulate in our bodies —and they might not be harmless. A 2024 study found that microplastics had made their way into arterial plaques, which are fatty deposits inside people’s blood vessels. What’s more, people whose plaques contained plastic particles were more likely to suffer heart attacks or strokes or to die from other causes in the following years than people without plastic detected in these plaques. Now, in a new study published in the European Heart Journal designed to shed light on the relationship between plastic pollution and the heart, researchers sampled the blood flowing around 61 people’s hearts. They found that 84% of the people who had a heart attack had plastics in their blood, compared to only 40% of people with less severe heart disease and 32% of control patients with normal arteries. The results provide further evidence that heart-disease risk may be linked to plastic exposure. Does plastic in the environment damage the heart? The mainstays of protecting the heart remain lowering levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol, controlling blood pressure, and quitting smoking. “But it has become increasingly clear that where and how people live—the pollutants they are exposed to—leaves a real mark on the heart, and we wanted to understand that better rather than treat it as background noise,” wrote two co-authors of the new study, Dr. Emanuele Barbato of the Sant’Andrea University Hospital in Rome and Dr. Pasquale Paolisso of Sapienza University of Rome, in an email. The study collaborators, who are both cardiologists, were part of the team behind the 2024 study of more than 300 patients that found a link between microplastics in people’s arterial plaques and an increased