Microplastics: The Panic Is Overblown. The Risk Is Real.

Welcome back to Cell to Systems, episode 18. In this episode, we'll be covering microplastics and hormonal disruption. It's kind of an interesting topic, and it's hot right now—the notion of microplastics getting into the body. There was some talk in 2019 that there was, you know, a credit card of plastic getting into our bodies per week. That was sort of debunked in 2026 when a study came out in Nature that said that was exaggerated by, you know, 100 to 10,000 times. However, recently there's been another study that came out, some research that's sort of coming through and saying that endocrine disruption is happening through microplastics, and it's seemingly more and more problematic. And that's exactly what we should say. The key thing I think here is, you know, you hear about these kids, young guys that are in their 20s that are showing up that are low on testosterone. So, where do we start, Kristi? What's the first thing we should be talking about here?

I think we need to separate what is proven from what is possible. I think that's kind of how I look at it. I mean, right now, you're correct, social media is treating microplastics like the next smoking gun, right? But there is so much more to this science than that. Some of the most alarming headlines were built around estimates, as you just talked about, Jo, that are now being challenged. But then again, at the same time, we can't ignore that microplastics have been found in human tissue, blood, and many of the chemicals associated with plastics have been known for endocrine-disrupting effects. Which I think, you know, leads into that bigger story of why are we seeing younger males and females with lower and lower hormonal disruption—and again, it's a big picture.

I don't think it's just the microplastics. There's a lot of things contributing to it. As providers though, our job is not to scare patients. When I look at my job when I go into a patient, it's to help them identify the biggest levers affecting their health. I tell patients all the time, you know, if your blood sugar is out of control, you have poor sleep, you're chronically stressed, your nutrients are deficient, and you're sedentary, those factors are likely having a much larger impact on your hormones today than the microplastics in your environment. The danger is when people become so focused on eliminating every plastic container in their life, but yet they ignore those foundational drivers of metabolic dysfunction and hormone regulation. Where I think this becomes clinically relevant is not the plastic particle itself; it's the chemicals associated with the plastics. Many compounds used in plastics can behave like endocrine disruptors, and they may interfere with estrogen signaling and androgen signaling, thyroid function, and insulin sensitivity. So, you know, I think again, kind of bringing it back, it's looking at the full picture. Are plastics part of it? 100%, but it's looking at all of those endocrine disruptors.

Yeah, for sure. I love what you said about the notion of like getting hyperfocused on one thing and losing this perspective of the overall, which is what tends to happen when people get on these sort of like tracks on this stuff. And you know, Dr. Free, I think it's really interesting. You sort of talk about these things all the time—the notion that hey, microplastics are disrupting our endocrine system, but there's a much bigger picture, especially around the autonomic nervous system. So those all play into it. We know if your hormones are off, you're going to have some problems with your nervous system, and if your nervous system is off, you're going to have some problems with your hormones. Right, there's certainly been a lot of hype around this topic that's a little bit frustrating because while it is certainly concerning, the times when it's most concerning are things like childbirth with new fetuses and when you're talking about infertility and you're trying to get pregnant. This is when we really see a lot of this being a concern for our patients.

And then we also have to think about all of our patients who are doing whatever we're treating them with for obesity, because endocrine disruption can become an epigenetic change that can occur that's transgenerational. This disruption does not just stop at one point. This actually becomes something that is from grandparent to parent to child. And we know that when we check umbilical cords, we can see these toxins in their umbilical cords. And so part of the problem with this is there's a discrepancy in the method of measuring, because the sizes of the particles are so variable and people can't decide what is the proper method of recording and what is actually considered a microplastic, and how do we decide that? But we can measure in the human the presence of the toxin. We use testing in our office for that, and it's helpful. One of the things we need to think about though is, what is the real concern when we have the presence of these microplastics? And for me, it's really how do we move the needle on detox? How do we get rid of these things, and how do we get our systems moving properly so that we're able to get rid of these microplastics that are disrupting the way that our bodies are supposed to function in general?

I always think about that. So we had Dr. Hussein on episodes ago and we talked about the Cleerly scan and then the ability to detect how much plaque was present in the arteries, and how they would go about treating that to remove it, which is like, oh my gosh, you know, you thought you'd never be able to get rid of that plaque. How do you get microplastics out of the body? So, there's a lot of possible ways. And I think we have to talk about detox in general and what that looks like. For me, in a lot of cases, we're talking about lipid exchange programs where we're helping people to change their cell walls to change the way they function. But I think it also may require in some people, especially if we're talking about transgenerational obesity or we're talking about fertility, we may need to go to potential new ways.

So, as Dr. Free mentioned, you know, this is really research that needs to be a little bit more robust as we move forward. You know, we're really sort of in the early stages of looking at some of this data. There have been like single-person case studies and such through some clinics that I'm familiar with, where they were doing before-and-after urinary toxin testing, where we're seeing significant reductions in things like heavy metal toxicity, mold mycotoxins, and other inflammatory particles that are really problematic for the body. Microplastics, nanoplastics—I haven't seen any significant data yet, but I think that it is a strong area where we're going to ultimately, if the research continues, see a lot of benefit, hopefully see that benefit. The theory, the plausibility, is I think very sound, and I certainly am explaining to my patients that I think that they're going to have a significant benefit in the removal of these particles. We're able to filter anywhere from 4 to 6 liters of blood. And it's just again a matter of, you know, the particle size and what's going to get through and what's going to get filtered out through that mechanism. But treating four to six liters of blood within an hour-long session is a great way to remove potentially microplastics, nanoplastics, and other oxidized lipids and residual viral particles—any number of things that could really do a number on the body.

I think it's really important, you know, to also focus on like, you know, we need these patients to be having bowel movements. If we think about stool as one of the major ways where people can potentially start to eliminate microplastics and nanoplastics, we have to optimize fiber, right? 40 to 45 grams of fiber a day, make sure they're hydrating adequately—all these things that we know are really important. But then when we think about the why, it becomes even more of a pressing issue. There's another blood treatment protocol that is readily used in hospital settings that I think everybody on the podcast is going to be familiar with, and it's TPE, or total plasma exchange. And this is aka plasmapheresis. This is really pulling out all of the plasma and the plasma-bound proteins and such and replacing it. It's a little bit more, I would say it's significantly more involved than EBO2, but there's some evidence that shows that that could be beneficial for microplastics and nanoplastics.

One thing that I do want to touch on before I kick it back to you, Jo, is that for me, I think that the main area where we know that microplastics and nanoplastics really can be exceedingly detrimental is in the risk for vascular disease, right? So there's the strongest evidence to date relating to increased risk for myocardial infarction and stroke. A 2024 New England Journal of Medicine study saw that above a certain threshold of microplastics within lipid plaques in the carotid artery—and these samples were obtained during endarterectomy, which is a procedure to ultimately sort of, you know, shave down and whittle away at some of the plaque there—for the patients that were above that threshold, they had a 4.5-fold increased risk of adverse vascular events within the next 34 to 36 months. So, you know, it's really telling that these things do cause a problem. I think we're so far in now, we've got decades and decades and decades of being exposed to these things that it's like, oh my god, what can we really do? You know, and I think that there are lifestyle things.

Yeah. And that's going back to just there's some lifestyle, and I think that's where I bring it back for patients, as far as helping them focus and educating them on the high-return interventions to reduce exposures without becoming fearful. Just the simple things is, you know, avoid heating up our food in plastic, using glass and stainless steel when practical, drinking filtered water, and minimizing heavily processed foods. And then I think the big one is improving indoor air quality. I'm a huge believer in getting a good quality air filter in every room in your house if you can, to help pull that. And these are just some simple changes that lower the risk without creating that anxiety. And then just to help patients strengthen their resilience, you know, by addressing optimal sleep, ways to improve that insulin resistance and the muscle, supporting the mitochondria, and then just correcting nutritional deficiencies and managing stress. I mean, the goal for me for patients is not to create this perfectly clean environment. The goal is to build a resilient human. And patients don't need more fear; they just need a framework for action. And I feel like that's my role, how I take it for patients when I'm being addressed with this, or when I do feel like I have a patient—cuz I don't currently have EBO2 or the ozone yet. I mean, it's something definitely on my radar to get. So I'm definitely working more on lifestyle. And then, you know, I also recommend those zeolites, the volcano mineral, that can help bind some toxins, too.

Craig, what do you do with your kids?

Oh, yeah. This is a challenging area for me, I admit it, because, you know, they love their snacks and their processed foods. They really do. And we try to limit it as much as possible. I mean, I like to think that we buy our produce organic as often as possible. If we aren't able to get organic produce for one reason or another, you know, we're putting it in the bucket or in the bowl, putting some baking soda in it, letting it sit, sort of leech as much of the junk as possible before rinsing them and stuff. But, you know, we try to reinforce that there are all manner of things out there that are not great for the human body. Although they may taste good, they may look appealing, we got to be careful. And so I just try to reiterate that to them while also, you know, being cognizant of the fact that I don't want to take away too much of their own agency and autonomy in making decisions, food decisions, and health decisions. But, you know, it's certainly always in the back of my mind. In full transparency, it's an area that I really feel like I could always be doing better, and I want to continue to strive to improve their health exposures and such.

I would imagine some of the frustration is you don't have control over all of it, right? They're at school for good parts of the day. They're with their coach and whatever sports they're playing. You know, when we used to play soccer when I was young, I'm 5 years or 7 years old or whatever, they'd give us oranges as the snack right after we played, or you got an orange or a banana—that was your snack. I can't imagine that's the case today.

Now it's like, you know, Mott's gummies and fruit roll-ups and protein bars, and, you know, I mean, it is what it is. I think as they get older, you know, they see their parents—they see myself and my wife doing a lot of the things. We use bottled water in the house, we use filtered water in the house. We do go onto like IQAir and look at the air index. You know, that's potentially even a more significant exposure source than food, really. I mean, if you think about it from an indoor standpoint, we're talking about like synthetic carpet fibers and things that are put off by synthetic flooring. And outside, if you consider like microfragments of tire residues and things that just get kicked off into the environment. So, we do—I look at the air quality index pretty regularly. And I talk with my patients; if they live here or some other municipality, you can go to the Environmental Working Group website and just put in a zip code and look at like the substances that are measured above certain thresholds for safety in terms of their water supply. So that's something that I incorporate with my patients, and hopefully, it makes a little bit of difference for them. But I agree, you know, to me, it's all about minimizing your sources. Don't microwave in plastic.

Have you looked at the app called Think Dirty that's part of the Environmental Working Group? I have not. It is awesome if you don't know about it. So, it's like you barcode scan your personal care products, like hair products and skin products and such, and it gives you a score based particularly on things like fragrances and phthalates. You know, pretty much anything that has fragrance or phthalates as the last ingredient, or if one of the ingredients is that, it is probably not good for you. That's kind of a rule of thumb. But with Think Dirty, you barcode scan your whatever, your shampoo, and it gives a score based on how toxic it is, and then it tells you each of the ingredients that's toxic and what that ingredient does in your body, or kind of big picture what it does in your body. And then it gives you an alternate option that is a lower score or better score, right? So they're usually from like Thrive Market or somebody like that, one of those big companies that provides healthier options. But, you know, I was able to change out my mascara and some of my makeup products because of going to Think Dirty where the toxicity was fairly high. And you don't even think about that because you just go to the grocery store and you buy your whatever stuff, or you see it on social media and you think it's the best. Oh, this must be the best because it's advertised here. And so, anyway, I love the fact that you can barcode scan those things.

Yes. Yeah. I guess it's Yuka or Yucka, I don't know. That's one that I have used, and it's really alarming. One day Hillary—Hillary, my wife—and I went to Walmart, and we were just like picking up product after product after product for sunscreen. And oh my gosh, it was really eye-opening. I mean, all of these contained all sorts of things that were, you know, really giving these products terribly low scores. I think it scored out of a hundred on Yuka, and most of these products were coming in in the teens and 20s. Finally found a product by Blue Lizard, which is like one of those roll-on sunscreens, which, you know, seems to have a good reputation. But yeah, yeah, I think it's important that people have access to those things, absolutely.

You know what's so fascinating? Like, I had never even considered—we have air purifiers in the house, but I always just think about it more like pollen and dust and allergens and that sort of stuff. And, you know, in California here, we had some pretty serious fires at one point in time, so you really needed to filter the air that was inside your house. In the offices here, we have air purifiers all over the place. But Kristi, bringing that up, that's so interesting because I had never heard—I never even thought about that before. And then Craig, you mentioned like the microfibers from all these synthetics that are out there. They're certainly making their way into the water supply. When you have a synthetic shirt and you wash it, it's letting go of some sort of, I guess, micro-nanoplastics. That's also when you put it in the dryer. My god, yeah.

So, what was curious about that 2026 study, right? Yes, yeah, that 2026 study was actually showing that the highest concentration is less in the water and more in the air. And so yeah, particularly over densely populated areas with lots of traffic like you're talking about, but where humans live. So in areas like in Wyoming, there's very little in the air, whatever. But if you're measuring water versus measuring air over land, you're getting way more toxicity in the land than you are in the water because of us. Because of what we do.

Wow. You know what? Every time, every episode, I learn so much. Today I learned two things: Think Dirty, right? That's what it is, right? Yes. And then Yucka. And then also this air. I'm just—now I'm like going to go research, research, research. I mean, this is amazing. People should be more aware of that. Although, going back to what Kristi said before, which I really think is important, is people—we're living in a time, I mean, people are stressed out. And so I think it's really great what Kristi said, putting it back into a framework to kind of keep it under control and say, "Hey, this is what we can do, and how do we become more resilient to these things, minimize our exposure, but also be cognizant of the fact that if we start really thinking about negative things too much, it's going to be detrimental." It really is like what we were talking about a couple of weeks ago about the Oura Ring and it being a scoreboard as opposed to an opportunity.

So, you know, there are things that are out of our control at this point. We live in 2026 and we live in the United States, and this is the highest density of that. So unless we want to move or really, really, really change our lifestyle, then we need to be aware of the things we have control over. And so one of the things I'm doing is moving to more natural fiber clothing—not today, but most of the time trying to move to more natural fiber clothing, making healthier choices in the environment where I do have control over things. And it's so funny to think back because we have to consider the possibility that this idea is getting blown out of proportion because, you know, it gets ratings. When you say, "Oh my god, we're going to all die from microplastics," you get ratings. And so I'm not saying this isn't something that you can do something about and should do something about, but I mean, this is an opportunity rather than a scoreboard. It's not, "Oh my god, I'm going to die." It's, "Let's see what are the things that I do have control over and what are the things I don't." And then we do some breathing exercises like Frank was teaching us a few weeks ago and teach us how to breathe differently. And then we do some humming, and we realize there are things we can control. There are things we can't control, and we make moves in ways that we can, and we don't worry about the things we can't control.

Well, and the healthiest patient is not the one that avoids every toxin, right? I mean, if we focus more on building healthy cells than chasing the scary headlines, we'll make better decisions and get better outcomes. And just trying to keep it simple for the patients. I mean, just kind of going back to the kids' scenario is my daughter. I don't know if you guys have ever been to club volleyball, but I have been to way too many clubs. But you talk about these convention centers, there are thousands of girls, and the smell that is coming out of there from their sweat and their hormones—like you just want air, right? Well, so all these girls after every match, they're spraying this Bath & Body Works perfume, trying to cause they smelled themselves. And I actually had my daughter get on Think Dirty. I was like, "Addison, we've got to find something." And she's like, "Well, mom, we all smell." And you know, they're spraying their knee pads. I mean, you know, and it's just because those gyms, when you get thousands of girls playing volleyball, you're going to get some stunk.

I use an oil that is rose oil that I get—I have it delivered from Bulgaria, but it's a rose oil that I just use at the end of the day for stress smell.

Mhm. Yeah, let's talk about this for a second because there's been some talk recently about fragrances as endocrine disruptors. So, you know, this notion of spraying on a fragrance. I started to hear about this, I think, last year. I was never aware of that before, and then I was starting to sort of like, oh, I want to maybe every once in a while use something if you're going out, but really try to avoid it. Now, there are two things I want to ask you guys about. First, you said topical lotions. I have dry skin. I've always had dry skin, I don't know why. But a topical lotion—is that going to be problematic? Is there anything there?

Yeah, well, it's absorbed through the skin. Yeah, and I mean oil-based, right? You know, emollients are going to penetrate deeper than water-based lubricants and things of that nature. You know, maybe that's a good area for you to just sort of trace it back to the root and think about the reasons why maybe skin is dry, and what can we do to improve the hydration more upstream, and focusing on those things that are going to feed into cell membrane health. Personally, I hate putting stuff on my skin. I don't even like to put sunscreen, I think to my detriment. I'm in the camp with Laird Hamilton, the famous big-wave surfer. The less you put on your skin, I think, the better. But I don't know, we'll see.

What about the fragrance side of things? Anybody have an opinion with regards to that? Is there any credible evidence that that could be a problem?

Well, the fragrance usually is phthalates, so that's where that is—the endocrine disruptor. That's what the fragrance is. So almost always, if you look at an ingredient list and it includes fragrance, it's some sort of phthalate, and so that is a place to be concerned. So what do we do about that? I think Craig's got the right motion, which is to say hydration. I would say, what are you using on your skin? This is what I hear all the time: that guys are using Irish Spring soap on their skin. What kind of soap are you using?

It's funny, I don't really use that much soap, and I only use shampoo. And now I'm really like, oh my gosh, the shampoo has a scent in it, and the conditioner has a scent in it.

You're probably getting those no-parabens, no-phthalates stuff, though. I mean, anybody I feel like the majority of us that are in the health-conscious world now are really looking to see that label on the bottle, but maybe not. I don't know, you tell me.

Yeah, you know what? I'm not sure, but I'm going to go find out. You guys are right. It's time to look at why is that happening? Why do I have dry skin? I guess the alternative would be just like rub beef tallow all over yourself out of a glass jar, and then you find out how it was processed—it may not have been the right way. Who knows? This is where we start to get super freaked out, and Chrissy's shaking her head saying, "What's wrong with you?"

You'll never go wrong going back to the gut. When there's skin issues, I always start there at the gut, because the gut can just take care of so many things once you finally heal the gut.

All right, moving on to the gut. So, I thought that was interesting, too—the cardiovascular effect of plaque plus microplastics. Seems like microplastics would stick to the plaque, making it worse. Now, we're talking about the gut, healing the gut. There is a test that you can do. What is that test, Kristi?

I use the Gut Zoomer. I mean, a lot of labs have different gut tests that you can do, just depending on how far deep you want to go down that hole. Looking at it as far as leaky gut and then causing that inflammation that, again, just leads to everything else—the endocrine disruptors. I mean, that's why I think the gut is such a vital part when someone's not even responding to hormones, or not responding to a therapy that we think they should be, or even peptides. You've got to always make sure: is this patient's gut healthy enough that they can actually use the hormones and metabolize them?

Vibrant's test is so comprehensive. Is that the one that you're referring to?

Yeah, that's fantastic. I really love that company. And you know, it takes a while for the report—a longer time for Vibrant's tests to come back, in my opinion, than anything from like, I don't know, Genova Diagnostics or Doctor's Data or whatnot, like GI 360 or GI-MAP. But the Vibrant test is so comprehensive for clinicians out there. They have excellent clinical support because the material that you get once the report is delivered is so incredibly dense. I was just like, "Oh my god, you know, help me make sense of this." So, you can hop online with one of the experts that they have there and review the patient's data and get some really good insights into what the results mean and what the takeaway should be for the patient. I just went through a Gut Zoomer today with a patient, and it's pretty cool, especially for somebody that has a lot of IBS symptoms or IBD symptoms. There's just so much that you can glean from that information, I think.

So you get this test, and it tells you essentially what's present in the gut that shouldn't be there, or what's the general gist of this? What's the end outcome on this?

So, you can pair these tests with any number of things. For example, the patient that I saw this morning, we did a Food Zoomer along with the Gut Zoomer and the Environmental Toxin Zoomer. The food sensitivity test incorporates a few different immunoglobulins. What's really interesting there is if you look at IgA, which is like the mucosal-associated immune protein, and then you look at the levels of the other immunoglobulins, when patients have those mucosal IgA elevations, I mean, you're really getting a significant potential breakdown of the gut barrier when those patients are incorporating those foods into their diets. So, those are areas where I'm like, you know, if they're raising—if the levels are elevated for the IgA and the IgG, you really have to be aware of what's going on with their food exposures.

But anyway, long answer to your question, Jo, is that you can really get a sense of what the patient may be reacting to. When it comes to specific foods, you can determine whether the patient is reactive to the whole protein, or when they break that down into smaller units, the actual peptides, they can have reactivity to those. And then with something like the Gut Zoomer, you can look at their commensal bacteria. You could look for pathogenic and opportunistic bacterial species, and any other problematic things, like for example, viruses that haven't cleared, viruses that have been present in a large degree, or parasites and other things of that nature. And then, you guys deal with this stuff regularly too, so you know, but ultimately, what I think is really cool is that you get a good readout on inflammatory markers, the diversity within the microbiome, and the digestive enzymatic function, which really gives a good indication as to, well, what are their stools like? Are they deficient in certain pancreatic enzymes? What's the integrity of the gut barrier? And then how do we rebuild that? The 5R protocol. And so, there's really so much data. It's probably more data than your average patient needs, but with a clinician who sort of knows how to walk a patient through that, I think that they can be excellent tools. I don't do them on everybody, but for people that have a lot of issues with their gastrointestinal tract, certainly, it is a lever to pull and something to investigate further.

Wow. And it sounds like you're getting a ton of information. I mean, we can rattle off like seven different things, and I'm sure there's a lot more. Dr. Free, you had mentioned a couple of episodes ago something about removing gluten for two weeks. Kristi, you said you're nice and you did three weeks with patients to see how they reacted. And Dr. Free, you said it's hard cuz I love gluten, right? Yeah.

Delicious Persian restaurant last night—the bread on the side with the cheese and the herbs.

Yeah, it's hard to say no to those things sometimes, and yet we can find out how quickly they can make us feel bad. Well, we've covered a lot. I think we're coming up on that time where it's time to start thinking about wrapping up. Craig, any final thoughts?

Just do what you can to avoid the stuff that you probably know is obviously bad. Now we have a new way of finding out what's bad based on these apps, which is going to be fascinating. I can't wait to just start going through my pantry with my wife.

Dr. Free, final thoughts.

Three swaps that actually move the needle: glass for plastic, and that includes food storage, drinking water, all of that; filtering—ideally something like a whole-house filter, but if not, using some sort of glass filtration system can be helpful; and then not using the microwave for, especially, styrofoam or plastic, making sure you're putting those things on glass again.

Yeah. There were times in the office where I would see people put plastic into the microwave with the plastic layer on top, and I'm like—I mean, like, how could you not know that that's not a good idea? But apparently, some people don't know that, and hopefully, they will now.

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, just like the idea of drinking hot coffee out of a styrofoam cup or something at Jiffy Lube. It's like, oh my god, you know, and people did this for decades. I don't know, I have sort of like a doom-and-gloom approach with this topic. I think that it is going to be a really significant issue that we have to face in the coming decades, and I'm concerned for the population with regard to microplastics. But don't stress about it is what, you know—do what you can, but take action now. I mean, what Dr. Free said about epigenetics and the fact that it's, you know, hey, it's the grandparent that passes it to the parent down to the child. You know, you could be the recipient of some bad activity down the road that you had no part in. So, we have a responsibility to our families to do everything we possibly can to treat ourselves the right way.

What an informative episode. I just want to thank you guys so much. I always—I love this podcast. It is just so full of amazing information that's actionable for patients right now, something that people can take action on today. Go use those apps. Figure out what's in your pantry. Obviously, probably not going to be spraying any of that fragrance on myself anymore, right? All right, it's been a ton of fun. Thank you all so much, and the dog can have my new fragrance. All right, we'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks so much.