Hacker News Reader

Comment by balaji1 | Hacker News Reader

> we’re not seeing toddlers around the world have kidney problems

is it possible that then we don't fully understand the resilience of the human body? It is certainly possible, when the article can state that:

> the health effects of consuming micro- and nanoplastics remain unclear

View on HN

We are seeing a steady increase in childhood cancer [0] and our male population now has half the sperm count the same population had in 70s [1].

[0]: https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/212/3/incidence-childhoo...

[1]: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/11/why-are-male-testo...

Overweight and obese men are more likely to have lowered sperm counts[1] and obesity has tripled since 1970[2].

[1] https://www.healthymale.org.au/news/obesity-overweight-can-i...

[2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and...

Surely it cannot be that hard to control for weight when doing a study on testosterone amounts in the body? i.e. we have half the sperm, but that's overall - do people who have a healthy weight also have half the sperm?

These are the problems that arise when everyone and their moms start talking about scientific studies this way.

We don't have enough information. We don't know how they collected their data, we don't know how they analyzed it, even if we did most of us don't know enough to judge those methods etc.

Most "science" is honestly worthless crap done by some random person mainly because they want a PhD or are trying to pad their publication count. They look for some arbitrary thing to test, half-assedly design a study, collect as little data as they can get away with, do a little p-hacking and such to make sure the results are significant (otherwise the time was wasted) then they publish.

Have you considered that you are simply listing two symptoms together instead of identifying cause and effect?

The average American consumes 23% more calories per day in 2010 then in 1970[1] and does 100 calories less physical activity per day in their occupation since 1960[2].

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/12/13/whats-on-...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3102055/

Have you considered that this is the _symptom_?

The OP was walking about kidney damage specifically. Have these cancers and sperm quality issues been linked to kidney function?

Those things could be related to any change in society. There's nothing to suggest it's plastics in particular, right?

Right, but is your suggestion to say "business as usual" until we have definite irrefutable proof for each and everything? I have no idea how likely or unlikely it is that having plastic in our bodies has any negative impact whatsoever, but that doesn't mean I can't still try to reduce the risk of accumulating more of it in my body. As with most things in life it's a tradeoff, with convenience mostly.

I don't have pans with teflon anymore. I avoid plastic bottles for beverages, which means I almost never drink any soda. I got rid of almost all my Tupperware and use paper bags or boxes made of steel when possible. And even though I grew up using the microwave a lot as a teen, I somehow ended up never owning one myself after moving out.

Yet for some reason I still managed to survive.

If it isn't plastic then what is it? We have been steadily identifying and reducing the number of toxic agents the public is exposed to. Fifty years ago in the 70s the average person would have regular exposure to lead gas, lead paint, tobacco smoke (even if they didn't smoke themselves - indoor smoking was still legal), potent pesticides, and maybe even asbestos. But there were far fewer everyday plastics at the time.

I suspect improvements in communications media. Every day, the average man sees many other men who out-compete him, with no hope of that ever changing. He sees men who are richer, taller, stronger, smarter, etc., in ever increasing realism and "engagement". Beating them is impossible, so the correct strategy in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness would be social submission and hoping they are generous. It seems plausible that there's some biological mechanism that lowers testosterone to aid this process.

so if you put the "natural" back around the people, biology and mental well-being will improve?

> I suspect improvements in communications media... But this is an interesting take. So wifi is hurting us after all haha

> We have been steadily identifying and reducing the number of toxic agents the public is exposed to

In some cases, we have just been uncovering what the businesses selling a toxic product already knew but covered up for a quick buck - even using sophisticated and “scientific” arguments.

In many cases, we just need the right incentive from the regulators. To prioritize long term thinking.

> If it isn't plastic then what is it?

a good thought exercise, but a distraction from the question at hand, which is, do we have convincing evidence that it's plastics?

There's tons of evidence pointing the finger at microplastics.

Besides, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle dictates that lawmakers should anticipate risks instead of allowing everything "because it's profitable" only to ban it 30 years later.

FWIW I think this is a good remark. It's just correlation until proven otherwise. I was just saying there are changes in society, one of which is the widespread use of plastics, and there are changes in population health roughly starting along the same time. But indeed, we also started to do sitting work massively, and started using wireless communications etc.

Then again, we also reduced coal use in cities, we burn less wood in our houses, etc.

It really, really hard to prove causation beyond doubt. If you have a strong correlation and a reasonable concern that it might be causal relationship, and we are talking about health impacts, at some point it is rational to use the precautionary principle and take action even if you don't have definite proof.

As an extreme example, we actually can't state with 100% confidence that exercise is good for your health, it's just too hard to prove. But nobody with a sane mind will doubt it.

> we actually can't state with 100% confidence that exercise is good for your health

Doubt. It depends what definition you use for "health" but we know for a fact that a sedentary lifestyle has negative effects and that an active lifestyle has positive effects. Those assertions are indisputable.

> There's nothing to suggest it's plastics in particular

Sometimes wonder if these arguments are just devil’s advocating. I mean do you avoid heating food in plastic for you and yours? Or are you so scientific that you believe it’s fine until proven otherwise?

Said another way, if you were to bet money, which way would you bet - that plastics are benign?

I'm not OP but yeah I assume it's fine until proven otherwise. Why wouldn't I?

Otherwise where does it end? What other things should I assume are dangerous despite no evidence? Or are you saying I should latch on to whatever baseless hysteria is popular at the moment?

I'm not a betting man. I think plastics have been around for a long time and as far as I know we haven't proven that they have a negative effect. If they did have a significant negative effect I'm pretty sure we would have proven it by now. So maybe they have an insignificant negative effect. I'm okay with that risk. If I weren't I wouldn't have time to do anything other than worry about and avoid shit that might have an insignificant negative effect - not to mention things that we know have a significant negative effect such as alcohol.

Honestly if you drink alcohol and you worry about microplastics you're just hypocritical.

> Honestly if you drink alcohol and you worry about microplastics you're just hypocritical

That’s correct. Some people feel powerless to address the bigger elephants in the room.

Being obsessively anti-plastic (or anything) shouldn’t be a coping mechanism (but that’s what it is, not hypocrisy).

But I’m suggesting that as a society, we can easily have the collective will to uncover and address issues - more research on plastic, more education on alcohol, etc.

Because we know what short term thinking unregulated actors can do, intentionally or unintentionally.

They are man-made, mostly non-biodegradable and mostly non-recyclable. Which means they are thrash. I'd rather avoid ingesting or creating thrash.

They are microscopic trace amounts of trash that until recently we didn't even know about.

They are unavoidable, doesn't matter what you eat. Fish, vegetables, meat, whatever you can think of it has microplastics.

If you want to expend a bunch of energy trying to minimize it go ahead and good luck. Personally I don't see the point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com