OREANDA-NEWS  Microplastics are found almost everywhere. Tiny particles, mostly invisible to the eye, can be found in water, air, soil, and even in maritime regions far from human civilization. Scientists discovered microplastics in humans many years ago. According to recent reports, such particles can also damage the membranes of human cells. 

There are over 70 million tons of microplastics in the World ocean. Then the particles enter the body of marine life and humans through sediment and are carried through the air. Two physicists, Jean-Baptiste Fleury of the University of Saarland in Germany and Vladimir Baulin of the University of Tarragona in Spain, discovered that microplastics could mechanically destabilize cell membranes. Their research was published in the journal PNAS, writes Heilpraxisnet. 

They found that microplastic stretches the membranes of human erythrocytes and thereby significantly reduces their mechanical stability. The scientific evidence shows that microplastics can cause inflammation in cells. “The possibility of inflammation of the cell membrane as a result of purely physical exposure is completely ignored by the vast majority of studies”, -  says Jean-Baptiste Fleury.

Theoretical physicist Vladimir Baulin has developed a mathematical model of how plastic particles act on cell membranes. “Vladimir Baulin's model predicted that each particle would absorb a portion of the membrane's surface area, causing the membrane to shrink around one particle. This effect then inevitably leads to mechanical stretching of the cell membrane. We were also able to experimentally demonstrate that a theoretical model can even quantitatively predict the increase in cell membrane tension”, - explained Jean-Baptiste Fleury.