Liver disease is rising globally and is now responsible for 1 in 25 deaths worldwide. While established risk factors, such as obesity and harmful alcohol use, remain central, they do not fully explain the scale or pace of this increase.
Through a wide-ranging literature review, a research team at the University of Plymouth says there is now clear evidence that exposure to micro- and nano-plastics can trigger oxidative stress, fibrogenesis and inflammation in animals—features that resemble those of advanced liver disease in humans.
With the liver acting as the body’s first major firewall, processing and detoxifying everything humans consume, there is a clear potential for these particles to enable the transporting of microbial pathogens, antimicrobial resistance determinants, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and carcinogenic additives into the human system.
The scientists have used that to introduce the concept of plastic-induced liver injury, and to call for increased research into whether it can accelerate the progression of alcohol-related liver disease and metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease, which affects more than 1 in 3 people worldwide.
In the review, published in Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology, the researchers highlight critical methodological bottlenecks, key knowledge gaps and unmet research priorities, as well as a number of technical challenges that are presently hindering the search for further evidence of plastic-induced liver injury.
They also provide a detailed assessment of the priority research required to fully quantify the effects of microplastics and nanoplastics on the liver, and emphasize the importance of health and environmental experts working in tandem to address that.
“The solutions unquestionably lie in ensuring the plastic products we make bring essential benefit to society and that those essential plastic products are safer in terms of their chemical composition. Also far more sustainable, shedding fewer micro- and nanoparticles than is currently the case,” said article co-author Richard Thompson, professor of marine biology at the University of Plymouth.
Data from University of Plymouth