I’m curious about the levels of microplastics and pfas in my body, and the only company i can find (million marker) claims to have $300 urine tests to give you those numbers. I’m usually skeptical of such companies, but would be willing to pay if the science or reputation of this place actually seemed worth the money. Does anyone have an analysis of the founders’ previous experience, the company methods, or other technical details that would allow me to make an informed decision on if I should get this test, or other companies I can look at?
[Question] Should I test myself for microplastics?
Which company are you talking about? (But I couldn’t answer your question anyway.)
I’ve written a lot about microplastics at https://forum.longevitybase.org/t/how-to-reduce-microplastics/126
and https://www.rapamycin.news/t/the-microplastics-thread-195-500-particles-gm-microplastics-in-apple-126-150-particles-gm-in-broccoli-coffee-etc/4734
Try to find the scientists who do research on it (eg microplastics in human blood) or exposomics or Snyder-lab-biobankees ppl (or UK/Danish/Estonian biobank samples) and ask them if you can take it. Also biobank some of your blood samples so you can test the change over time, even if you can’t immediately test them.
(eg https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/microplastics-found-in-human-blood-for-first-time (paper at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412022001258) or https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acs.est.3c04524 or https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/mapping-the-exposome-to-prevent-disease)
You can even apply for funding for microplastics testing (even if initially $$$) from the standard grants (eg https://www.sfrey.net/ ) b/c this is a socially important issue and making it easier for other people to do the same could help spread awareness fast enough for us to develop the necessary movement for finding alternatives earlier rather than later (minimizing microplastics levels is alignment-related because we don’t want to lose our own human compute/intelligence for “dumb reasons” like lead and microplastics, and we know how many IQ points we’ve lost due to lead ⇒ reducing both lead/air pollution in the world was practically a Pareto-efficient tradeoff and came without a hit to the economy). This may be doubly important for the smartest people (where additional hits to their intelligence over their lifetime may cause them to lose reliability over age, even though we assume they might not [eg if you’d wonder what’s happening to Yann LeCun.....]) If microplastics hurt brain plasticity the same way that lead hurts it, it makes people less able to change their mind/see their blindspots (doubly important in worlds where important decisions are made by older people)
Styrene is by far the most toxic microplastic, and samples of it have been found in drinking water, even drinking water in polyethylene bottles.
[but all counts are undercounts if you don’t report nanoplastics, see the Columbia University papers in 2024 that use a special form of stimulated Raman spectroscopy—and the current microplasting test services don’t include nanoplastic counts]. The CU papers have even found that water filters are a source of nanoplastics.
Elizabeth got funding for testing iron deficiencies in vegans, so you can apply for similar funding assuming the same rationale (even testing for average blood levels over time over a span of a few years provides worth/use [especially if you test it in quantified self’ers who give the rest of their data to iollo, or to people who attend RAADfest] even if it takes longer to find health effects). James Clement has experience with taking blood samples from centenarians and is approachable so you can ask him for advice.
(even testing trends in microplastic levels in common foods packaged in different kinds of food packaging over a period of time [eg canned food vs tetrapaks vs Trader Joe’s vs Whole Foods] is socially important data)
It seems that microplastics are in soil, so figuring out how this related to food sources is important.
https://pubs.acs.org/page/vi/new-approaches-microplastics-research?ref=vi_collection
Finally, the easiest way to reduce microplastics exposure is by far semaglutide (just by reducing appetite, and also reducing binge eating when traveling)