Kind: captions
Language: en
By looking at the brain tissue, they
found that microplastics were present
in, wait for it, 100% of the
individual's brain study. Everyone had
microplastics in their brain. We all
have 60,000 miles worth of blood vessels
packed inside our bodies. And when we
eat something like plastic, it will
actually deliver the plastic right
through these channels right to our
organs. Microplastics in the brain can
also cause
this is a kind of cellular can damage
your DNA. DNA and brain damage not a
good thing. Is there something we could
eat along with the food that could
actually help prevent the microplastics
from getting into our blood vessels?
Answer is yes. And you know what that
something is? It's something you should
be eating anyway. It is
[Music]
[Applause]
Okay, we've known for many, many years
that microplastics show up in our food
and our water supply. These are tiny
little particles of plastic less than
five millimeters in size, smaller than a
grain of rice, that basically degrade
from the plastic that we um wrap
everything in. All right? And these
microplastics are now in our ocean.
They're coming from food packaging,
bottles that get thrown out, bottles
that contain our beverages. Cling wrap,
you know, that stuff that you put over
uh your food, right, before you stick it
in the fridge or to keep it protected
from the air. They come from tea bags,
they come from everywhere. Even tires
that we actually are driving on the road
is one of the biggest source of
microplastics. Gets in the air and then
we breathe it in. Well, microplastics
are in our food supply. When we eat
plastic, the plastic particles, the
microplastics enter our bloodstream.
Now, you know that I study blood
vessels, and I've said this many times.
We all have 60,000 miles worth of blood
vessels packed inside our bodies. These
are the highways and byways that take
the oxygen that we breathe and the
nutrients that we eat to every single
cell and every single organ in our body.
And when we eat something like plastic,
it will actually deliver the plastic
right through these channels right to
our organs. All right? Until recently,
we didn't realize that they could
accumulate in our body. But now we do
know they will accumulate for sure.
Researchers have found microplastics
inside the human brain. All right. This
is the first study that was done on this
topic by the University of New Mexico
School of Medicine. They looked at brain
tissue from people who died, okay, and
had autopsies. And these were people
aged 51 to 84. So they had pretty much
half of their life or their entire
lifespan to encounter plastics. And
they're coming from a generation, all
right, where plastics were everywhere,
right? And everything you ate, uh,
everything you you handled basically was
plastic. And by looking at the brain
tissue of these people using a special
technique called pyrolysis gas
chromatography mass spectrometry don't
worry about the name that tongue twister
what I'm telling you is a very specific
technique that they use they analyzed 69
samples from these people uh from
multiple brain regions all right so
basically you think about the human
brain it's like a football all right has
frontal loes on a in the front temporal
loes in the side, the cerebellum, which
sits underneath the brain, uh, and then
the brain stem, which is the root of the
brain. And they just sampled different
parts of it, 68 different uh, uh,
samples. And here's what they found,
they found in these older people that
microplastics were present in, wait for
it,
100% of the individuals brain studied.
Everyone had microplastics in their
brain. And in 26 out of 69 of the brain
samples, so 37% of the samples, the
plastic was found in different regions
all throughout the brain. In other
words, it wasn't just present in one
part of the brain. It was scattered
everywhere. Again, remember blood
vessels, highways, and byways delivering
these little plastic particles, shooting
them across every portion of your brain
where they actually get embedded. So
what kind of plastic was actually found?
Well, the kinds that you might have
heard about, they found polyvinyl
chloride, PVC. Ever hear about PVC pipe,
right? Your drain in your plumbing.
Well, they found PVC plastic, which is
found in cling wrap, for example. You
know, the plastic stuff that you um put
over a dish of food. Um that contains
PVC. By the way, you know what else is
contains PVC? You might be surprised by
I was surprised when I learned this that
in a restaurant, you know those uh
plastic tablecloths, right? Sometimes
those co tablecloths are coated with
PVC's.
All right, so they found that in the
brain, scattered throughout the brain.
They also found something called
polyethylene.
Now, what's polyethylene found in? I
didn't know this until I had looked it
up. Plastic wrap. Again, cling wrap.
Plastic bottles. Think about the water
bottle or soda, which you shouldn't be
drinking for health reasons. All right.
Cereal box liners, right? Think about
it. Open a box of cereal. What is all
that stuff found in? In a bag of
plastic. Juice containers. Plastic juice
containers. Even milk cartons, right?
You ever pour out milk or finish the
milk in a carton, then look inside it or
open it up when you were a kid? What's
inside there? Plastic liner, right?
That's what polyethylene is found in.
And it was found scattered throughout
the brain. One more plastic. They found
polyethylene,
tetrathalite,
pet. Where do you find that plastic?
Water bottles, ketchup bottles, right?
Think about that. Salad dressing
bottles. Think about it. You get go to
the grocery store, you get a bottle of
salad dressing. What's it in? Plastic.
PET. It's even found in cooking oil. You
know why it's found in cooking oil?
Because I bet when you buy your cooking
oil, whether you do it now or in the
past, I bet you bought a bottle of uh
oil that's found in a plastic container,
guess what oil does? It leeches the
plastic and it just dissolves right into
that oil. Then you're going to cook with
it. Then you're going to eat it. So, we
encounter these containers made out of
plastic that are shedding plastic into
our bodies. And then now we're knowing
it's getting into the brain. We
encounter these uh plastic sources every
single day. Why are these plastics that
accumulate in the brain concerning? We
don't have the full answer yet. So I
want to tell you this is an area of
active research, right? But we know
enough to be cautious about it. And I'll
tell you why. Plastic particles may
trigger neuroinflammation.
Neuroinflammation simply means you've
got inflammation around nerves. So when
neuroinflammation is in your brain,
that's not a good thing because your
brain is packed with neurons. And when
they're inflamed, your brain's not going
to work well. All right? And when your
brain doesn't work well, what does that
translate into? Cognitive problems,
impairment. And think about it as we are
all aging and we want to be overall
healthy when we're aging. One of the
biggest desires is for us to be
cognitively uh sharp good brain function
and neuroinflammation will compromise
that microplastics in the brain can also
cause oxidative stress. This is a kind
of cellular stress that can damage your
DNA. DNA and brain damage not a good
thing. All right. And we think that this
microplastics in the brain can cause
over the long term neurological
dysfunction. Now think about all those
neurological conditions of aging,
Parkinson's, dementia of various sorts,
uh um memory issues, uh all those kinds
of things that on top of the
neuroscychiatric issues that we see as
people are getting older. All right.
What is the contribution of
microplastics that have accumulated
throughout the brains? Listen, when
plastics first came out in the 20th
century, mid 1900s, it was a miracle
that we could make plastics that were so
solid, so colorful, so convenient, so
strong, right? Um, and nobody thought
that they would actually shed into the
food. But now, years later, we're
getting smart about it. So I don't
criticize a kind of a an amazing uh
technological feat uh that was going
that was going on whatever 70 years ago.
But now we know better. All right. And
we believe and re some researchers
believe that the kind of chronic brain
inflammation that um microplastics could
be contributing to could even be linked
to diseases like Alzheimer's disease and
Parkinson's disease. I don't think I
need to say anymore. Plastic shouldn't
be in our brain. When plastic's in the
brain, there's a chance it could cause
inflammation, neuroinflammation. And we
know all these dementias, Alzheimer's,
Parkinson's, vascular dementias, all
right, they are all associated with
brain inflammation. So again, we don't
know the full answer. More research is
needed and is underway. But having
plastic building up inside your body
anywhere, but especially your brain,
nobody wants this. All right. So what
can you do? What's the practical way to
lower your risk of exposure? Okay, can't
avoid it all together, but how do you
lower your risk? All right, number one,
try to avoid ultrarocessed foods because
they are often found packaged in plastic
bags or wrappers. When they come in a
can, that can is coated with a lining of
plastics to prevent the metal from
contacting the material inside and
giving a metallic taste. plastic. That
stuff just dissolves off or flakes off
into the food that you're eating. The
other thing is that we find uh
microplastics even in fruits and
vegetables. Okay. So, what do you do
about that? Well, what I do and what I
recommend that you do is to wash your
produce, right? So, you go to the
grocery store, you buy all the healthy
food in the produce section. Plant-based
foods, you should definitely do that.
What you do um before you're going to
prepare it and eat it is wash it under
cold running water, okay? For at least
60 seconds. So, what I do in my house, I
get one of those big metal mixing bowls,
right? They're they're deep, they're
big, wide, and you can put your fruits
and vegetables in there. All right? And
then just fill them up and let the water
run. All right? So, what you'll find is
when So, don't overload it. Make sure
that the water can get get in there and
wash things out. You'll be amazed at the
dirt that comes off your food. This is
this is like dirt that's been maybe from
the farm, certainly in the container
that they the box they were in, maybe on
a train or a plane or a truck or
wherever they go and then in the back of
the grocery store and then loaded onto
the shelf where you bought it. And even
farmer farmers market, you've got um
schmutz that you actually want to wash
it off. 60 seconds of of cold running
water will actually take care of most of
the stuff. And according to USDA
guidelines, that will actually make the
food wash the bacteria off of most of
the food as well. Okay. Most foods will
have had some contact with plastic
somewhere along the point from where
they were in the field to um to your
plate. So this is your opportunity to
clean it off. And by the way, avoid
storing or even buying your food in
plastic, right? So skip the plastic bags
that are in the produce section.
Instead, buy a reusable cloth bag that
you can bring back. It's also more
sustainable, better for the environment
rather than keeping on buying plastic
and throwing the plastic away, right?
That that's going to wind up somewhere
somewhere that we don't want it to wind
up. Uh, and some of it's going to wind
up in your body. Get a cloth bag, reuse
it. It's better for the planet and
better going to be better for your body.
Another thing to avoid is use ditch
those plastic food storage containers. I
used to have them all over the house. I
grew up with them. You know, my mom
would actually say, "Oh my gosh, this is
so convenient for us to store.
Inexpensive, lightweight, strong,
colorful, stacked easily." You know what
that was then, this is now. We now know
that plastic storage food containers
will shed the plastic right into the
food. Now, the lid is actually okay. So,
get what I say is get a glass bowl,
Pyrex bowl or metal, and then a plastic
top is fine. All right? As long as it's
not like contacting the food. All right?
So those are things that you should
actually think about. What about foods
uh that you bring home that are thin
skin uh like apples or cucumbers for
example? You know what? If you have a
soft brush, all right, not a plastic
brush, but like a with bristles. All
right, or made with bamboo like they
have these bamboo uh scrapers. Rinse
them uh brush them off and then dry them
with a clean real cloth towel. Not one
of those plastic microfiber towels, real
cotton towel. All right, so these are
things that we didn't really used to
think about much, but in the old days,
like parents when they were kids and
grandparents, they always dried things
with a towel. All right? And they
probably washed their food as well, and
they didn't have the plastic to store
them in. All right? So listen, it's
frankly impossible to avoid all
microplastics because we even breathe
them in the air. Remember I told you
tires turns out to be from the road
spinning around just flaking off plastic
everyone everywhere turns out to be one
of the biggest sources of microplastics
and we just inhale it. But every step
you can take knowingly about the way you
buy your food, the way you wash your
food, the way you store your food, okay?
And the containers and and the cookware,
right? Don't don't be cooking your food
with a plastic spatula. Get wood or get
metal. All right? every step you can
take will lower your reduce your
exposure and that can make a difference
over time. Now, let's talk about some
really cool things that have been
discovered because now we're on to
microplastics. We're also trying to
figure out ways of actually getting rid
of microplastics. So, uh researchers
have actually looked at how you can get
rid of microplastics that are in your
food. You can't get rid of them, right?
So, what happens if they're in a food
and you're eating them? Is there
something we could eat along with the
food that could actually help prevent
the microplastics from getting into our
blood vessels? Answer is yes. And you
know what that that something is that
can help lower microplastics being
absorbed to your body. It's something
you should be eating anyway. It is
dietary fiber. Dietary fiber is good for
us because number one, it keeps your
bowels moving so you're more regular.
Number two, and this is the more
important reason, dietary fiber feeds
our healthy gut bacteria. Good gut
health is very important. And when the
bacteria are wellfed, they release
substances called short- chain fatty
acids into our bloodstream that lowers
inflammation, improves our brain health,
improves our metabolism, and helps us
heal faster as well. Okay, so dietary
fiber should be eating that anyway. But
here's another reason. Now we beginning
to discover that dietary fiber, which
also, by the way, forgot to mention,
lowers cholesterol. That new research
from Hanan University in China suggests
that not eating dietary fiber can flush
out microplastics. Pretty cool. All
right, so I told you about the problem
and here is a potential solution. So
there are ways that fiber, dietary
fiber, can help your body get rid of
microplastics. Three different ways.
Number one, fiber when you're eating it
actually binds to microplastics are
already inside your gut, right? So
you're chewing, eating regular food,
you're going to be eating some plastic.
You eat food with dietary fiber that the
fiber from the food will bind to stick
to the microplastics so they don't get
absorbed into your bloodstream. That's
pretty cool. Number one. Number two,
dietary fiber will strengthen the lining
of your gut. So think of your gut as a
tube. All right? Like a big garden hose.
That's your gut. All right? About 40 ft
of it from your mouth to your anus. And
your your gut is a tube. And the lining
of that tube has to be really strong,
right? Now, if your lining is not
strong,
okay, you got holes opening up and the
lining of the gut and then the stuff on
the inside comes out. That's called
leaky gut. Pretty common actually. You
know, leaky gut syndrome. More common
than we thought. Um, as a doctor, I can
tell you we were not really taught about
this in medical school. Now we're
realizing it actually is pretty common.
That lining is pretty sensitive. And uh
guess what? Dietary fiber strengthens
that lining, tightens it up. Less leaky
gut, less likely any microplastics in
your food that's in your gut are going
to just dissolve out. So the fiber binds
to the microplastics and just keeps it
going, moving down so you can get rid of
it. You poop it out. It tightens the
lining of the gut so it's stronger. So
you've got less leakiness of the gut
where micro microplastic can leak out.
And the third thing is that the fiber
will feed the bacteria and that bacteria
will actually help your body counter any
plastics that do get into your
bloodstream, right? And that and the
plastics can cause inflammation as I
mentioned to you and well-fed gut
bacteria from dietary fiber will lower
that inflammation. So the if any
microplastics are causing a problem,
your your diet your dietary fiber will
feed your gut microbiome which will then
counter the inflammation, right? So
fiber blocks, removes and protects,
okay, against microplastics. It's really
another reason that you should be eating
more dietary fiber. Here are some pro
tips from me on how you can protect
yourself against microplastics based on
what I told you so far. Number one, eat
a diet that is very fiber richch. All
right. Fruits, vegetables, mushrooms got
dietary fiber. Avocados got dietary
fiber. Legumes, white beans, black
beans, kidney beans, they all have
dietary fibers. Chickpeas, lentils, good
source of dietary fiber. Whole grains.
Okay, there lots of reasons whole grains
good for you. Dietary fiber is one of
them. And now here's another reason. It
can actually help protect you against
the harms of microplastics. nuts and
seeds, you know, tree nuts, walnuts,
pecans, almonds, pistachios, macadamia,
all those types of tree nuts, Brazil
nuts, the dietary fiber protects you
against microplastics among other thing
beneficial things they're doing. All
right? And then soluble fiber that you
would find in oats, flax seeds, lentils,
apples, day old rice after you
refrigerate it. Baked potatoes after you
refrigerate them. They're all turning
regular starch into resistant starch,
which then feeds the gut microbiome.
They are effective at binding the toxins
including dietary fiber. Another thing
that you can do is to stay hydrated. I
always tell people to to, you know, stay
hydrated. Water is, you know, our body
is made of anywhere from 50 to 70%
water. You want to stay very, very well
hydrated. Okay? And guess what? Fiber
that protects you works best from your
diet when you have enough hydration
because hydration keeps things moving
smoothly. All right? Keeps your blood
flowing smoothly. So, you want to stay
hydrated. Get a water filter because you
want to make sure your water is actually
clean or find a really clean source of
water. And you want to get dietary
fiber. It's best to get it from food and
it's best to mix it up because your
body, your gut bacteria, they like to
have different kinds of dietary fiber,
not just the same source every single
time. So, you can take a supplement that
has fiber in it. All right? Um, but it's
much better to mix it up. Um, uh, and
it's better for your body anyway. Foods
that are very diverse help your gut
microbiome, which then lowers
inflammation, which is a way to counter
any inflammation that microplastic would
cause. Now, let's switch from
microplastics to heavy metals. All
right. What are heavy metals? Lead,
cadmium, mercury, arsenic. Do any of
those things sound beneficial to your
health? I didn't think so. All right.
But these heavy metals, lead, cadmium,
arsenic, mercury, they actually occur in
nature. Listen, we live on a planet that
at its core is filled with different
types of metals and minerals, including
heavy metals. But here's the thing. You
want to decrease the amount that gets
into your body from the environment,
right? That makes a lot of sense. You
want to decrease heavy metals in your
food. So, you want to pay attention to
consumer research where people are
testing for heavy metals in food and you
want to lower the amount of heavy metals
that you might get in your drinking
water, right? So, how do you reduce your
exposure to heavy metals? Let's start
with drinking water. How does heavy
metal get into drinking water? Well,
listen. These metals naturally in earth
can leech from rocks in the soil or from
pipes that like lead pipes right that
are in your house. Old lead pipes they
leech out that can get right into your
water. And then there's industrial waste
and even chemical fertilizers from your
lawn that run off heavy metals that go
into the waterways and eventually get
into the reservoir. And guess what? Even
though most reservoirs have good
filtration and sanitation and they do
periodic testing, guess what? They can
contain heavy metals as well, right? So,
how do you deal with this? Well, I want
to show you tell you about something
that was is pretty simple. I think it's
cool. A cup of tea can actually help
bind the heavy metals that might be in
water. So, this is research from
Northwestern University and they have
shown that tea leaves, okay, tea
particles, tea is made of tea leaves
from a from a bush. Tea leaves can help
filter out heavy metals like lead,
cadmium, arsenic, mercury. Filter it out
from your water. So, let me explain how
this works, right? How do you make tea?
Well, you're going to take water. You're
going to boil it, right? The water from
your tap, unless you've tested it, might
have some heavy metals. Maybe from your
pipes, maybe from the reservoir, maybe
from leeching from the soil. Who knows
where all the places it can come from.
But let's say you're going to brew the
tea, right? So, you're boiling the water
and they're going to brew some tea. And
it turns out that tea leaves, tea
leaves, right, which is basically like a
leaf off of a bush, dried up when you
buy tea. Now, when they pack it into
your tea bag, you don't see the leaves,
but they're in there. And I actually
like to get whole leaf tea. All right?
Uh that's how when I grew up, my parents
would used to drink tea that way. Just
these containers, just the leaves. You
put them into the cup, you pour boiling
water in it. Guess what? Those tea
leaves have a property called
biosorbency.
Biosorbency kind of sounds like what it
means to do. It absorbs things. And so
tea leaves will even pieces of tea like
crumbled tea can attract and bind
ions that are metal through absorption.
That's a process called absorption. And
what what they'll do is they will stick
to heavy metals, lead, cadmium, arsenic,
mercury. Those will stick to the tea
leaves. And guess what? They pull them
right out of the water in your tea.
Right? So the study from Northwestern
University, the researchers tested
different kinds of tea. They tested
black tea, green tea, ulong tea,
chamomile tea, royos tea, that's a kind
of a plant tea from South Africa. It's
got kind of a red tea. It's not really
made from tea. Camels. All right. And
chamomile tea is also not from the tea
bush. It's made with flowers. All these
things have benefits to your body.
anti-inflam anti-inflammation,
antioxidants. Again, the researchers
tested a variety of teas in various
forms, powdered tea, loose leaf tea, tea
in a tea bag. Right? So, this is a
really interesting experiment. They boil
the water, steep the tea or put the tea
leaves in. All right? Or put the powder
in. And then they looked at how that
liquid
that's been steeping the tea, what they
found uh happened to heavy metals in the
tea and what was in the tea leaves
themselves. So here's what they found.
Ready? The finely ground black tea, it's
the kind of tea you'd find in the
English breakfast tea, for example, had
the strongest heavy metal binding
capacity. Black tea like Earl Grey
English or Irish breakfast tea finely
ground up was actually the best at
pulling out heavy metals from the water
in your tea water. Pretty cool. Now the
other thing that was pretty effective
were tea bags made from cellulose. Now
this is really important. Cellulose is
kind of a plant-based fiber. All right,
but most tea bags can be coated with
nylon to make them stronger. Even paper
ones, all right, sprayed with plastic.
nylon. And guess what? Uh the cellulose
uh doesn't have any microplastics on it,
but nylon tea bags will leech out. You
got it. Microplastics, not what you
want, right? So, finely brown black tea
really good at binding heavy metals.
Cellulose based tea bags also bound to
heavy metals and they don't release
microplastics. The longer the steeping
time, the more heavy metals were
actually removed from the water. So,
that's pretty cool. How could you put
this into practical use? Like most
people brew their tea 5 to 7 minutes.
All right, that'll give you a nice
strong brew cup of tea. People like
lighter tea will brew less. If you like
stronger tea, you brew it a little bit
more. But if you want to get the maximum
heavy metal binding properties out of
your tea leaves, use your tea to work
for you. You know what you do? You
actually brew tea and let it brew
overnight. And you can put it in a
fridge. All right? Um like iced tea. And
you're not just only just making the tea
more potent. You can dilute it later,
but you're also filtering out those
heavy metals, right? So, tea leaves work
like a natural filter. You want to detox
your water by drinking tea, choose black
tea in a cellulose based bag, okay? Or
better yet, use loose leaf tea or
powdered tea. So, let me just kind of
give you a little recap of all the stuff
we talked about in this video. First,
microplastics.
Avoid them because they can get in the
body and now they've been discovered in
the brain, human brain. All right. You
can avoid them by uh avoiding plastic
containers, plastic bags, plastic
bottles, plastic um cooking utensils,
plastic plates, plastic cups, right? You
go to the ball game, go to a party, go
then think about all those red plastic
cups that avoid that. All right? Eat
more fiber to help flush out any uh
microplastics that are going to be in
your food anyway. You can't avoid it,
but you can lower the risk. And then
when it comes to heavy metals, cadmium,
lead, arsenic, mercury in your water,
try steeping some tea and you can
actually drink the tea and get the
beneficial polyphenols, lowering
inflammation, improving your your
metabolism, cutting off blood supply,
starving cancers, all that stuff. Better
for brain health, good for gut health as
well. And now here's another reason to
drink tea. It actually steeping tea,
black tea, powdered tea, or in a
cellulose bag can actually bind away,
take out of the water heavy metals. If
you found this video helpful, hit the
like button and subscribe if you haven't
already. And then share the video with
somebody that you know, get them to
subscribe so we can actually all get
this information out. This is practical
information uh that can benefit our
health. These are simple steps that we
can take. That's it for this video. I
will see you in the next one. Dr. ly
out. Hey, if you like that video, then
you're going to love this one. Check it
out.