Microplastics found in human ovary follicular fluid for the first time
Microplastics have been found for the first time in human ovary follicular fluid, raising a new round of questions about the ubiquitous and toxic substances’ potential impact on women’s fertility.The new peer-reviewed research published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety checked for microplastics in the follicular fluid of 18 women undergoing assisted reproductive treatment at a fertility clinic in Salerno, Italy, and detected them in 14.Follicular fluid provides essential nutrients and biochemical signals for developing eggs.Contaminating that process with bits of plastic quite likely has implications for fertility, hormonal balance and overall reproductive health, the authors wrote.The findings represent a major step toward figuring out how and why microplastics impact women’s reproductive health, but are also “very alarming”, Luigi Montano, a researcher at the University of Rome and study lead author, said.
“This discovery should serve as an important warning signal about the invasiveness of these emerging contaminants in the female reproductive system,” the study states,From the top of Mt Everest to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, microplastics and smaller nanoplastics have been detected throughout the environment,Food is thought to be a main exposure route: recent studies found them in all meat and produce products tested,Microplastics are particularly dangerous because they can contain any number of 16,000 plastic chemicals,That includes highly toxic compounds like Pfas, bisphenol and phthalates, which are linked to cancer, neurotoxicity, hormone disruption and developmental toxicity.
Microplastics have been found throughout the human body and can cross the brain and placental barriers.Montano’s latest paper is part of a larger project he’s leading for which he has also detected microplastics in human urine and semen, and examines the impacts on fertility.He said he suspects microplastics are among chemicals driving plummeting sperm counts and a drop in overall sperm quality.“We have proven this decline, especially in areas where pollution is bad,” Montano said.Though men are more susceptible to the substance’s toxic effects, he added, women are also possibly impacted.
Animal research has linked the presence of microplastics to ovarian dysfunction and health problems, like reduced oocyte maturation, and a lower capacity for fertilization.Another study on mice showed alterations to ovarian tissue.The paper notes a “possible presence of correlation between the concentration of microplastics” and reproductive health in the women who participated in the new study.Montano added that the bisphenol, phthalates, Pfas and other highly toxic chemicals that use microplastics as a “Trojan horse” to get into the body, and into the ovaries, are “very dangerous”.The chemicals are already well-known for disrupting hormones and harming women’s reproductive health.
The follicular fluid paper offers a “very important finding”, said Xiaozhong Yu, a University of New Mexico microplastics researcher, but he added that more work is needed to determine the dose and level of exposure at which adverse effects start to happen.“This is the work in the next phase – we need to quantify,” Yu said.His team is also attempting to answer some of those questions with broader epidemiological research.Montano’s team is doing similar work, and he’s spearheading research that is trying to determine how much reducing the use of plastic in the kitchen and eating an organic diet will reduce the level of microplastics in the body.The substances’ ubiquity makes it difficult to avoid, but reducing the amount of plastic used in the kitchen – from packaging to storage to utensils – can likely reduce exposures.
Pesticides can contain microplastics, or in some cases are a form of microplastics, so eating organic may help.Experts also advise that people avoid heating plastic, or putting hot food and liquid in plastic.Single-use paper coffee cups, for example, can shed trillions of bits of plastic when hot liquid is added.Similarly, tea bags can release billions of particles, and microwavable plastic is also a problem.Plastic utensils that briefly come into contact with hot pans can also leach chemicals; wood and stainless steel alternatives are less harmful.
Scottish Water staff to strike for two days as pay standoff continues
Scottish Water staff will strike for two days from the early hours of Tuesday as a standoff over pay continues at the state-owned company.The striking workers’ union warned that emergency repairs and quality checks to water supplied to 5 million people across Scotland would not be carried out during the action on Tuesday and Wednesday.More than 1,000 workers in the Unison union will go on strike for the second time in a month in the pay dispute, after rejecting a deal that the union said was 2.6% and followed years of real-terms cuts to wages.The Unison Scottish Water branch secretary, Tricia McArthur, said: “Scottish Water workers are simply asking to be paid fairly for the essential services upon which everyone in Scotland relies
The Guardian view on City deregulation: a recipe for recklessness
In its desire to ensure the City of London remains attractive after Brexit, the Treasury seems to have forgotten one of the major lessons of the 2008 financial crisis: when regulation is lax, risks accumulate. This month, it launched a consultation about whether it was time to lighten the rules governing alternative asset managers, including private equity and hedge funds, in the belief that doing so will boost growth. There is little evidence to support this idea, and every reason to think it could exacerbate systemic risks.The proposal is consistent with Rachel Reeves’s belief that expanding the financial sector will deliver economic prosperity. The chancellor has suggested that post-crisis regulations went “too far”
Australians pay $84 a month for their internet. Why so expensive, and what can be done to lower the cost?
Australians are paying an average of $84 per month for internet access on the NBN – and in a cost-of-living crisis, questions are being raised about why cheaper internet is not available for people on lower incomes.What could be done to lower NBN pricing plans, and can we learn from overseas?According to the latest report, about 8.6m of the 12.5m premises able to connect to the NBN are now using the service in Australia.Consumer advocacy group Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (Accan’s) latest survey conducted by Essential, of 1,065 people, found Australians are paying $84 per month on average for their home internet connection, with 31% paying between $81 and $100, 30% paying between $61 and $80, 20% paying over $100, and just 13% paying $60 or under (with the rest unsure)
Views of TikTok posts with electronic music outgrow those using indie
It is another example of the parallel worlds in the music industry. The Gallagher brothers may be taking over the world’s stadiums this summer, but over on TikTok users are moving to a different beat.Views of posts using electronic music as a soundtrack, including techno and house, outgrew those tagged for indie and alternative for the first time in 2024, according to the social media app.There were more than 13bn views of videos tagged #ElectronicMusic worldwide last year, an increase of 45% on 2023, representing faster growth than the “indie and alternative” and “rap and hip-hop” genres. Videos created with the electronic music tag grew by more than 100% over the same period
Grounds for concern with credibility urgently needed on racing data
What is the state of the going at Thirsk before the track’s meeting tomorrow evening? In a well-run racing industry, this should not be a trick question, but it does rather feel that way after James Sanderson, the track’s clerk of the course, admitted in an interview last week that when it comes to GoingStick readings – the numbers that professionals and punters alike rely upon as an objective guide to the state of the ground – he feels at liberty to massage the data as he sees fit.Sanderson told an interviewer from the Barstewards Enquiry podcast, which is a sponsor at his track, that he had knocked a point off the actual reading from his GoingStick before publication ahead of Thirsk’s meeting on 12 April. He subsequently told the Racing Post that he had done so because “if we published the readings as they came out of the ground they would be misleading”, and added for good measure that he does not believe he is the only clerk of course that routinely tweaks the numbers.“If the Racing Post did an anonymous survey of clerks of the course,” Sanderson said, “and asked do they ever change the reading, or manipulate the process to get a reading they’re happy with, I’d be amazed if you didn’t get 50% or more saying yes. I know others do, I talk to them
Let it out or bottle it up? Does venting emotion harm performance in elite sport? | Sean Ingle
Two scenes from an extraordinary week. The first: Justin Rose, a gentleman in a bearpit as Augusta hollered loud and long for Rory McIlroy. The second: the British tennis player Harriet Dart, causing a stink by asking for her French opponent to apply deodorant as “she’s smelling really bad” before succumbing to a 6-0, 6-3 thrashing.Pressure does strange things, of course. But the wildly different reactions of Rose, Dart and indeed McIlroy, whose final round became part white-knuckle ride, part pass‑the‑parcel, raises an intriguing question: when the heat is on, should sport stars let their emotions out or bottle them up to improve their performance?Of course it is encoded in sport’s DNA that letting off steam can sometimes be a good thing
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