Dangers of Microplastics with Dr. Ovadia

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Talking about microplastics, why is that so important to be acknowledged for your heart health and overall health? Yeah, so we now have studies where they have looked at plaques from uh arteries in the heart, from arteries in the neck, you know, in people that are undergoing operations because they've built up enough plaque blockage, and you can actually find the microplastics in those plaques. So, there was a study a few years ago where they were looking at patients undergoing what we call carotid endarterectomy. So, this is basically a clean-out of plaque from the artery in the neck. And they looked at the plaques under the microscope, and they saw did they contain microplastics and how much.

[00:00:45]And I forget the exact numbers, but it was something like 80% of the plaques contained microplastics. And more importantly, the amount of microplastic that was in that plaque was then predictive of how that patient did over the subsequent 10 years. So, it wasn't just that the microplastics that were in, you know, were maybe contributing to the plaque formation, it's that microplastic burden having a higher burden of it predicted that you were going to have worse outcomes even after the operation.