Medical researchers in Christchurch are investigating whether microplastics found in human tissue are contributing to rising bowel cancer rates among younger people.
A team of University of Otago medical researchers are comparing biopsies from people with normal and precancerous colonoscopies, amid growing concerns about a link between microplastics and rising cancer rates.
Microplastics are absorbed by humans eating, drinking, and also breathing them in.
Christchurch-based Associate Professor Jacqui Keenan told 1News scientists were “recovering microplastics, and we're weighing them so we get an idea of density per gram of tissue”.
The university is asking forty patients for samples from screening colonoscopies.
“A lot of the work [elsewhere] to date has been using cell culture models and it's been using animal models,” she said.
“So in terms of internationally, I think we are sort of at the front, we're taking it to actual patient biopsies.”
Fresh from a Time magazine cover story on his cancer work this year, colorectal surgeon Dr Frank Frizelle is helping oversee the pilot study.
“The lining of the bowel is a mucous layer, so it's like a giant condom protects the lining of the bowel,” he told 1News.
But he is among the health experts who suspect plastics damage this layer, allowing toxins in.
“And these toxins damage your bowel and create a, set off a cascade that leads to cancer,” under the hypothesis, he said.
Bowel cancer is becoming more common in people aged under 50 in New Zealand, now increasing by about 26% per decade.
Keenan said: “Now people presenting [with bowel cancer] at an early age since the 1960s actually correlates with the increased production of microplastics globally.”
A report by ESR Crown researchers in 2022 noted exposure to microplastics could change the gut and might increase cancer risk through toxicity and chronic inflammation.
The Ministry of Health said it was keeping watch of emerging findings.
SHARE ME