It seems that nobodyand no body partis safe from microplastics.
In a recent study, researchers found traces of plastic in the testicles of both dogs and humans.
Yu and his team have long been interested in studying how the environment can affect peoples reproductive systems.
Plastic rubbish left somewhere on an inhabited island of the Maldives.Image: Lars Halbauer (AP)
He had recently heard aboutresearchfrom a separate UNM team that found microplastics in every human placenta that was tested.
That made him curious enough to look for microplastics elsewhere, specifically in testes.
In both dog and human testes, Yu and his team consistently found microplastics.
Specifically, they found 12 types of microplastics across 47 samples from dogs and 23 samples from humans.
When I first received the results for dogs I was surprised.
I was even more surprised when I received the results for humans.
Theres a lot we dont know about the effects that microplastics could have on our health.
The authors say that more research is needed to know whether microplastics can affect sperm production.
But they want people to know about the potential risks of this exposure.
We dont want to scare people, Yu said.
We want to scientifically provide the data and make people aware there are a lot of microplastics.
We can make our own choices to better avoid exposure, change our lifestyle and change our behavior.
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