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Chewing gum is the latest sneaky source of microplastics, releasing thousands of pieces into your saliva

4 April 2025 at 13:24
trader chewing gum
You might get more than you asked for when you pop a piece of gum.

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

  • Chewing gum releases hundreds to thousands of microplastics into your mouth, a new study suggests.
  • Chewing gum's base ingredient is synthetic rubber, which is a type of plastic.
  • A stick of gum is a relatively small source of microplastics, but a chewing habit could add up.

Microplastics are flowing out of gum as you chew it, preliminary results of a new study suggest.

The burst of flavor in the first few minutes of chewing a stick of gum comes from the hundreds to thousands of microplastics the gum is releasing into your saliva, said the study's lead author, Sanjay Mohanty.

Indeed, the base ingredient of chewing gum β€” the part that makes it chewy β€” is synthetic rubber. That's plastic.

"That's something very few consumers know," Mohanty, an engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Business Insider.

"You are eating a material that is made of plastic. At least 2% of that is plastic," he said, referring to a piece of gum.

To be sure, microplastics are everywhere. Countless products shed them in your home. They're in your dust, food, and drinking water. They're in soil and oceans all over the world β€”Β from the Mariana Trench to the top of Mount Everest. They've been found in human blood, poop, hearts, testicles, placentas, and breast milk.

microplastics
A researcher finds a tiny piece of blue plastic on the forest floor.

Ted S. Warren/AP

An especially offputting study recently found human brains potentially contained enough microplastics to make a spoon.

Mohanty said, "99% of things I see around me are plastic, so I should not be surprised to find plastic in everything, including my own body."

Research has found correlations between microplastics and inflammation, infertility, lung and colon cancers, and risk of heart attacks and stroke. However, it's unclear if microplastics caused or contributed to those conditions.

"My goal is just to inform what we could do differently," Mohanty said.

Chewing less gum, it seems, is one thing we can do.

girl chewing gum
Yep, that's got plastic in it.

Carlo Allegri/Getty Images

Mohanty presented these findings, which have not undergone peer review through a scientific journal, at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society last week.

"Chewing gum was not something on my radar," Britta Baechler, the director of ocean plastics research at the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy, who recently co-authored a study on microplastics in food, told BI.

"I think scientists are getting really creative with trying to get a more complete picture of our exposure to microplastics," she added.

Natural gum released plastic, too

Mohanty and the graduate students in his lab chose five brands of synthetic gum and gave seven pieces of each brand to a single person, who chewed each piece for up to 20 minutes, rinsing with clean water in between pieces to clear out residual plastic.

Knowing the plastic base of gum, Mohanty wasn't surprised when he measured hundreds to thousands of tiny plastic polymers swimming in the person's saliva as they chewed each piece.

He was surprised, however, when they ran the same tests with five brands of natural gums, which are made from plant materials like chicle instead of a rubber base.

Natural gums resulted in about the same quantity of microplastics in the chewer's saliva.

They even found the same plastic polymers in both types of gum: polyolefins, polyethylene terephthalates, polyacrylamide, and polystyrene. Those types of plastics are also used in food wraps, shopping bags, car parts, egg cartons, and packing peanuts.

Person grabbing for a mug in a box with packing peanuts
The plastic that helps make packing peanuts is also found in gum, apparently.

Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images

Because of the measuring techniques they used, this experiment was only able to detect plastic particles 20 micrometers wide or larger. That's about one-fifth the width of a human hair. It's likely that gum also releases plastic of even smaller size β€”Β nanoplastics β€” Mohanty said.

Should you chew gum?

There's good news β€”Β sort of.

The researchers found the most microplastics within the first two minutes of chewing gum. After eight minutes, 94% of the plastic particles they detected had already been released.

A simple way to cut back on plastic is to chew your gum for longer instead of popping a new piece, Lisa Lowe, a graduate student who ran this study with Mohanty, said in a press release.

In the grand scheme of your daily microplastic ingestion, a stick of gum probably isn't much. You ingest billions more microplastics from a cup of tea made with a plastic-containing teabag (which is more common than you might think), a 2019 study found.

Still, a gum-chewing habit could add up. Based on their findings, the researchers calculated that someone who chews 160 to 180 small sticks of gum per year would ingest about 30,000 microplastic particles annually.

Mohanty said his wife stopped chewing gum altogether after hearing their results.

"Why eat chewing gum and directly ingest plastics? Chewing gum is non-essential," Mohanty said.

If you do chew, Mohanty added, throw your gum in the garbage instead of leaving chewed-up plastic in the street.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Researchers engineer bacteria to produce plastics

Plastics are great, except when it comes to making or disposing of them. Production generally requires the use of chemicals derived from fossil fuels, and so helps to continue our reliance on them. And the final products are generally not biodegradable, so they tend to stick around despite breaking down into ever smaller fragments.

Biology might ultimately provide a solution, however. Researchers have identified bacteria that evolved the ability to digest some plastics. And improvements in our ability to design proteins have allowed us to make new enzymes that can chew up plastics.

This week brings some progress on the other side of the equation, with a team of Korean researchers describing how they've engineered a bacterial strain that can make a useful polymer starting with nothing but glucose as fuel. The system they developed is based on an enzyme that the bacteria use when they're facing unusual nutritional conditions, and it can be tweaked to make a wide range of polymers.

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What's in that drink? Starbucks becomes less Instagrammable.

20 February 2025 at 03:00
Starbucks Frappuccinos
Starbucks is moving away from clear plastic cups to opaque, compostable cups in some states.

Hollis Johnson

  • Starbucks is moving away from clear plastic cups in some locations.
  • It has introduced opaque cups for its hot and cold drinks in 14 states.
  • It's a big change for a brand known for its Instagrammable drinks.

Starbucks has rolled out opaque cups for its drinks in some states, marking a shift in presentation for a brand that's become known for designed-for-Instagram drinks.

A representative for the chain told BI that a "small number of stores" in the US transitioned to using "commercially compostable hot and cold cups because of local government requirements." The change went into effect on February 11 in 14 states, including California, Washington, and Massachusetts.

As of the end of December, the chain had over 17,000 stores across the US.

The new cups β€” which are white and feature flat or domed lids β€” look similar to the disposable paper cups the chain has historically used for to-go hot drinks. They bear the message, "This cup is compostable. Cheers to helping reduce waste together."

The website says they are made from fiber-based paper board with a bioplastic liner.

The move to opaque cups is a shift for a brand known for colorful drinks that often go viral on social media.

In 2019, Starbucks launched a limited-time-only drink, the Tie-Dye Frappuccino, a fruity drink with rainbow colors. Other notable β€” and Instagrammable β€” limited launches include the bright purple Unicorn Frappuccino in 2017 and the turquoise Crystal Ball Frappuccino in 2018.

Starbucks also sells some colorful items on its permanent menu, such as its magenta-colored Refreshers and its Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Crème Frappuccino Blended Beverage.

MΓ‘rio Braz de Matos, the cofounder of the Singapore-based branding consultancy agency Flying Fish Lab, told BI that changing a product's packaging can "greatly impact a brand" from an experience and perception perspective.

"That's why brands are usually very careful to test any packaging changes that might significantly impact the user experience," he said.

"While there will be an impact on how 'Instagrammable' the beverages are in this new packaging, this must be weighed against its positive environmental impact," he said.

The transition to opaque compostable cups comes as Starbucks' CEO, Brian Niccol, attempts to reposition the brand and turn it into an inviting coffee shop where people want to spend time.

The brand has evolved significantly from its origins as a low-key Seattle coffee shop. In a podcast interview earlier this month, Niccol said mobile ordering has "chipped away" at the brand's "soul."

Niccol, who took over leadership of Starbucks in September, has said he will be simplifying the chain's offerings. In an earnings call on January 28, he said Starbucks had brought back using reusable ceramic mugs for hot drinks served in stores.

On the call, Niccol and Starbucks' finance chief also said the chain would remove 30% of its menu items to streamline service and introduce aΒ new algorithmΒ to smooth service for its mobile orders.

Starbucks' stock was trading at $112 early Thursday. It is up about 17% compared to a year ago.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Researchers found a spoon's worth of nanoplastics in human brains — the latest evidence that plastic is accumulating in our bodies

3 February 2025 at 12:48
Hand holding microplastic
Micro and nanoplastics are in the food we eat and the air we breathe.

Getty Images

  • Researchers took samples of human brains from dead people to look for microplastics.
  • The brain samples had higher levels of plastic than kidney or liver samples.
  • People who died in 2024 had more nanoplastics in their brain samples than those who died in 2016.

The brain is the most well-protected organ in the human body, but it has a surprisingly high amount of microplastic pollution, according to a paper published in Nature Medicine on Monday.

For the study, researchers examined 52 brain samples from autopsies and found they contained seven to 30 times more microplastics and nanoplastics compared to kidney and liver samples.

The amount of plastic the researchers found in the average brain sample is about equivalent to a plastic spoon, according to lead author Matthew Campen.

He said the measurement methods are still being developed. "We're working hard to get to a very precise estimate," Campen said in a press conference on Monday.

What this means for neurological health is unclear

The brain samples were taken from the prefrontal cortex, which controls behavior and is involved with decision-making. Most of the plastics found were nano-sized shards or flakes of polyethylene, which is used in plastic bags, plastic food wrapping, and plastic water bottles.

It's unclear what effect this may have on neurological health. In the study, the 12 people with documented dementia had higher levels of nanoplastics in their brain samples compared to samples from people without dementia.

"We cannot say, from this study, that micro-nanoplastics are causing dementia," Jaime Ross, an assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Rhode Island who wasn't involved with the study, told Business Insider.

Dementia patients often have impaired blood-brain barriers, meaning the elevated levels of micro-nanoplastics may have been a symptom and not a cause of the disease.

"I think it's going to be challenging for clinicians to distill the important parts of this down for patients," said Campen, a toxicologist and professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of New Mexico. "The big thing that patients need to hear is that it's not known that there are health effects that are caused by the plastics at this point."

Microplastics have been found in many parts of the human body, including the heart, liver, testicles, and breast milk. Experts don't fully understand the health impact, though some studies have linked microplastics to heart disease, strokes, and low sperm count. Researchers are also investigating whether they play a role in the risk of developing certain types of cancers.

"It wouldn't surprise me if micro-nanoplastics are affecting us. We just don't know to what extent, yet," said Ross, who co-authored a paper published in 2023 that found behavioral changes and brain inflammation in mice after they drank microplastic-polluted water for three weeks straight.

The brain has a protective barrier that should protect us against microplastics

Unlike the kidney, liver, and other organs, the human brain has a protective filter called the blood-brain barrier that blocks many harmful pathogens and toxins.

Campen said it's unclear from his research why so many nanoplastics are managing to cross the blood-brain barrier, but the brain's high proportion of lipids, or fats, likely plays a role.

"If you've ever cleaned a Tupperware bowl that had bacon grease or butter in it, it takes a lot of soap and hot water. It's really hard to get the plastics and fats apart. We think that's part of this process," Campen said.

A silver lining is that microplastics may not accumulate in the human body over time

The latest study didn't show higher levels of micro and nanoplastics in older brains compared to younger brains, suggesting our bodies can pass enough of these plastics in our feces to prevent buildup. "So we're not just accumulating these over time, over our lifetimes," Campen said. More research is needed to confirm that finding.

The study did, however, find an increase in micro and nanoplastics in brain and liver samples taken from individuals who died in 2024 compared to 2016. Campen said this increase is likely due to the increase in plastics in the environment.

"This is significant because it suggests that if we were to reduce environmental contamination with microplastics, the levels of human exposure would also decrease," Tamara Galloway, a professor of ecotoxicology at the University of Exeter who was not involved in the research, said in a statement.

Microplastics are inescapable β€” they're in our food, air, water, and trash.

You can reduce your exposure by washing your hands before you eat, removing plastic from food before microwaving, and avoiding drinking from plastic bottles.

Read the original article on Business Insider

So many young people with colon cancer have clean diets. What gives?

Woman collage with foods and xray.

Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI

  • Increasingly, young people with clean diets and healthy lifestyles are getting colon cancer.
  • Doctors say diet plays a role in the rising risk, but doesn't tell the whole story.
  • We are learning more about ways microplastics, sleep cycles, and our environment may play a role.

At 30, Chris Lopez was hitting his stride. He was attending culinary arts school in Dallas. He was meal prepping and hitting the gym regularly, focused on getting a degree and setting up his life right.

His symptoms were easy to dismiss, at least at first. "I had a real bad stomach ache that was going on for about a month," he told Business Insider. "I thought, 'Oh, maybe I ate some sushi, some fish or something that was undercooked.'"

Except food poisoning doesn't typically last for weeks on end, and doesn't leave blood in your stool. He rapidly lost weight, from 175 pounds to 145 in a single summer β€” without eating less. "I was pretty much like a skeleton," he said.

Lopez went to his doctor, who eventually decided to do a colonoscopy to learn more. That's when they discovered a "grapefruit-sized" tumor in his colon, he said. Lopez saw the scan and couldn't believe his eyes. Colon cancer? He was so young, healthy, and fit.

chris in his chef uniform
Chris Lopez was diagnosed with colon cancer at 30 years old.

courtesy of Chris Lopez

Stories like Lopez's are increasingly common. Colon cancer rates are rocketing among athletic young people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and survival rates are dropping.

Take Chris Rodriguez, a 37-year-old improv actor and CrossFit enthusiast who adheres to a high-fiber, high-protein diet, with plenty of veggies. He was 35 when he was diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer.

"The question pops in your mind, 'What else was I supposed to do?'," Rodriguez told BI. "That's really the unfortunate thing with a diagnosis like this, is there isn't really much else that you're supposed to do, outside of looking for symptoms."

The most convenient explanations for the rise in young colon cancer are diet and weight. We know diet can influence colorectal cancer risk, and it's something people can fix, to a degree. Plus, our diets have changed. These days we all consume more sugar, more ultra-processed foods, more oil and butter, while moving less.

Still, doctors say the trend we're seeing now defies neat categories of genetics or lifestyle, and it's baffling. Other factors are clearly messing with our digestive systems, but they're tough to pinpoint. Pollution, microplastics, and artificial light β€” all are pervasive in society, yet very tricky to study.

Thanks to recent research, we are starting to get a better picture of why young colon cancer cases are rising, and we're on the cusp of some pretty big results that may uncover better ways to prevent and treat it.

Young colon cancer is getting deadlier and more common

Something shifted in the 1960s. Everyone born after 1960 has a higher colon cancer risk than previous generations. This phenomenon is known as the "birth cohort effect."

"The rise that we're seeing cannot just be accounted for by inherited differences," Dana Farber colon cancer researcher Dr. Marios Giannakis told BI.

In the US, young colon cancer rates have been rising about 3% every year since the early 1990s, according to National Cancer Institute data.

"We do think since genetics haven't changed, the cancers that are increasing are environmentally based," Dr. William Dahut, the chief science officer at the American Cancer Society, said during a recent briefing to reporters. "Exactly what's doing it is really β€” more research is needed."

The biggest cancer centers in the US are opening units to investigate this trend. In 2018, Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York opened a first-of-its-kind center for "young-onset" colorectal cancer patients. Dana Farber in Boston, Mass General, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Columbia University Irving Medical Center followed close behind, all opening special programs for young colon cancer cases.

In 2021, the CDC took action, lowering the age of recommended colon cancer screening from 50 to 45. It's an effort to catch more young colon cancer cases sooner, upping the odds of people surviving.

It isn't a uniquely American issue. Wealthy countries, in particular, are seeing similar spikes. New Zealand, Chile, Norway, and Turkey are among 27 countries recording record-high rates of young colon cancer.

Diets matter β€” to an extent

person holding shaft of wheat, farming

John Fedele/Getty Images

It's hard to dismiss the role our changing food landscape has played. We are undoubtedly eating worse than our grandparents did 100 years ago.

Take fiber, for example. Found in abundance in whole plant foods like beans, it is a nutrient clearly associated with lower risk of cancer.

Some of the most popular foods in US supermarkets β€” prepackaged for our convenience β€” tend to have fiber stripped out during processing, and extra salt, sugar, and oils added in to make them more palatable and shelf-stable.

It started in the aftermath of World War II, when industrial processing and factory farming took hold nationwide.

"Essentially we redeployed what had allowed the United States and allies to prevail in that war to non-military applications, and it completely transformed agriculture," Dr. David Katz, a leading expert in chronic disease prevention and nutrition, told BI.

"You only have a certain total number of calories you can eat per day, and if a higher percentage of those is made up of hamburgers and Pop-Tarts, then a lower percentage ipso facto is made up of lentils and all the other good stuff."

Ultra-processed foods now account for a significant proportion of what we eat. Excess sugar, salt, and chemicals lurk in pasta sauce, breakfast cereals, and salad dressing. Brown bread labeled "heart healthy" can have a higher sugar content than white Wonderbread.

Upsetting the balance of nutrients in our guts has consequences. Compounds that aren't necessarily harmful in moderation, like omega-6 fatty acids from seed oils, take up a disproportionate part of our diets. That can lead to inflammation, infection, and diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and, yes, colon cancer.

Your microbiome is not just about what you eat. It's influenced by myriad factors, from how you were born to your work schedule.

What else is going on?

bright night lights of the city

Bim/Getty Images

Doctors and lab scientists who spoke to BI for this story all said the rise in millennials getting colon cancer likely won't be attributed to one single thing.

Shuji Ogino, an epidemiology professor at Harvard Medical School, has been studying young colon cancer cases across the world. He published a study in Nature that showed the early life "exposome" β€” diet, lifestyle, environment, exposures β€” has changed dramatically, becoming conducive to cancer.

We've introduced lots of new things to our environment without knowing the ramifications. Now, we're starting to see the long-term effects.

Something as simple as artificial light could play a role. "That's something no human being experienced 200 years ago," Ogino said. Lights allow us to work and socialize at all hours, impacting how our body clocks regulate hormones and metabolism.

Dr. Heinz-Josef Lenz, co-lead of the gastrointestinal cancer program at the University of Southern California cancer center, is also studying how the environment may be damaging our DNA in ways we don't yet understand.

His data so far suggests the trend of more younger folks developing colon cancer isn't genetic, but our genes may affect how we respond to our exposures β€” the processed food we eat, the antibiotics we take, and the polluted air we breathe.

"When you are 16 years old or 20 years old, you cannot blame it on diet or exercise or obesity β€” it's just too short," he said. "We're just scratching the surface on better understanding the impact of the parents, particularly in the young onset: was their exposure part of it, or not?"

Here are five things we're learning:

1. Sleep cycle

We can't separate gut health from our internal clock.

Gut bacteria help regulate sleep, which cuts cancer risk.

Emerging evidence suggests that disrupting the circadian rhythm creates problems in the gut that can contribute to colon cancer, according to studies in mice and data in humans. Our sleep can be derailed by late schedules and artificial light from our homes and phones, which may be one factor in rising colon cancer cases.

2. Microplastics in air and water

Increasingly, researchers are finding evidence that microplastics play a negative role in fertility.

They can also be pro-inflammatory, driving diseases like cancer and obesity, hurting lungs, and possibly helping cancer to thrive in the body.

A new evidence roundup from researchers at UCSF analyzed 22 studies that compared microplastic exposure to health problems in mice and people, and found that all of them showed some harm.

"We basically saw this continuous effect that the more you get exposed to it, so in our environment, the more it gets produced, the greater the health harm," Nicholas Chartres, one of the study's authors and a former head of the science and policy team at UCSF's program on reproductive health and the environment, told BI.

Chartres says the time is now to act to reduce our microplastic exposure, and it must be done at a policy level. At home, Chartres runs around the house throwing out his kids' plastic toys, but he knows he's playing a losing game of environmental whack-a-mole.

"We don't need to have specific quantification of the level of harm, there's enough here to show that they're certainly contributing," he said.

3. What your parents were exposed to

Lenz is conducting research that aims to unravel why so many Hispanic patients in Southern California seem to be especially at risk of developing early colon cancer.

His team is studying cancer patients' blood, DNA damage, lifestyles, and ZIP codes to pinpoint where their exposure risks might be coming from, whether it be overuse of antibiotics, pollution that families are exposed to, or something else.

"It could be an epigenetic event, not only from the patient itself but from the family, from the parents and their exposure," he said. "Epigenetics can be influenced by lifestyle and by exposure to chemicals, or whatever it is that will actually react."

4. Antibiotics

It is well established that antibiotics disrupt the gut microbiome, killing off some beneficial bacteria. And humans aren't the only antibiotic consumers.

Most of the antibiotics (73%) in use worldwide are for meat production, recent research suggests. Some meat advertised as antibiotic-free has failed independent testing.

Red meat consumption ups a person's colon cancer risk, and so does antibiotic use, but these two factors aren't necessarily separate.

5. C-section

Newborns are exposed to trillions of their mother's microbes as they travel through the birth canal, giving an infant's microbiome an initial boost. Kids who are delivered through the abdomen via cesarean section don't get those same health benefits.

Recent research from Sweden suggests girls who are born via c-section have a higher risk of developing young colon cancer than those born vaginally.

Major colon cancer discoveries coming in 2025-2026

In 2024, a group of international researchers mapped 1.6 million cells in the gut to create the most comprehensive picture to date β€” the "gut atlas."

"It's rare that any one study squeezes out all the relevant biological insights," Ivan Vujkovic-Cvijin, a professor of medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, who was not involved in the study, told Business Insider.

"By identifying which components of tissue function are dysregulated in disease, the scientific community can design drugs to restore those functions," he said.

There's more to come. Multiple big, well-funded multinational studies are underway, including a US-UK collaboration that's giving out interdisciplinary cancer grants to teams around the world. The studies are expected to release results this year and next.

2 ways to reduce your risk today

Until we know better what's going on, researchers and clinicians say there are two steps you can take to reduce colon cancer risk.

First, control what you can control.

"Let's focus on the stuff we can change," Dr. Cassandra Fritz, a gastroenterologist and colon cancer researcher at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, tells her patients.

That means no smoking, regular exercise, less alcohol, reducing your intake of ultra-processed snacks and processed meats, and no sugary beverages β€” factors directly linked with colon cancer risk. You could also consider microwaving food in glass or ceramic instead of plastic.

Second, know the signs of colon cancer and do not be complacent about them. Many young cases are diagnosed too late, making treatment complicated.

These four symptoms can occur up to 18 months before a colon cancer diagnosis:

  • Abnormal diarrhea that lasts for weeks
  • Persistent abdominal pain
  • Bloody stool (red, magenta, or black)
  • Iron deficiency anemia (determined by a blood test)

Don't fear the process of getting checked, experts told BI. Anyone dealing with these persistent symptoms can ask their doctor for a fecal immunochemical test (FIT) that is noninvasive and costs just a few dollars.

"If there are symptoms which could be associated with colon cancer, make sure you get the screening and don't just accept that they're saying 'It's unlikely' or 'I've never seen it,'" Lenz said.

When it's spotted early, colon cancer is a very survivable disease.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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