What the scientists are saying…
Plastics in the body Scientists have obtained the first clear evidence that plastic is finding its way into the human body. For the pilot study, researchers at the Medical University of Vienna recruited eight adults from across Europe and Asia, and asked them to supply stool samples along with a record of what they’d been eating. Every sample was found to contain plastics, including nine of the ten most common types. Microplastics – pieces less than 5mm in diameter – have previously been found not only in oceans and in the air, but also in many packaged foods, including bottled water and honey. “This confirms what we’ve long suspected, that plastics ultimately reach the human gut,” said Dr Philipp Schwabl, who led the research. On its own, the presence of microplastic particles in the digestive system is not thought to pose a serious health risk, though there is concern that chemicals could leach out of the plastic as it progresses through the gut. The bigger fear is that plastic nanofibres could be being absorbed through the walls of the intestine, making their way into the blood supply and accumulating in other organs, a phenomenon that has been observed in animals. The team now wants to carry out a larger study to investigate whether, and to what extent, this is occurring in humans.
Why being tall can lead to cancer Tall people are known to have a greater risk of some types of cancer – and it’s probably because of all the extra cells in their bodies, new research suggests. Past studies have found that for every ten centimetres of height, a person’s risk of developing most types of cancer goes up by about 10%. Scientists have proposed various explanations for this, including that hormones that promote growth in childhood also increase the risk of cancer later on. But Professor Leonard Nunney, of the University of California, Riverside, believes it’s simpler than that: tall people tend to have larger bodies, so they have more cells in which mutations can occur. For his research, he compared the correlation between height and increased cancer risk revealed by previous studies with computergenerated predictions of risk based on a body’s number of cells, and found that the two matched perfectly. In some cases, the link could be masked by other drivers of cancer, such as HPV infection, he says. But height is still important. “Whether that comes from a better diet or the fact that your parents happen to be tall doesn’t matter... it is purely [the] number of cells, however that came about.”
High rates of a silent killer Rates of death from sepsis are five times higher in Britain than in Europe’s best-performing country, Finland, an analysis by Imperial College London has revealed. Known as the “silent killer”, because it is so hard to spot, sepsis, or blood poisoning, kills 40,000 people in the UK each year. Britain’s sepsis mortality rate has gradually decreased over the past three decades, falling from 40 to 35 deaths per 100,000 women, and from 49 to 40 deaths per 100,000 men. Yet other countries have had more rapid declines: Finland, which once had similar rates to Britain, had a rate of 6.5 deaths per 100,000 women in 2014, and 10 per 100,000 men. Early diagnosis of sepsis is critical, but sepsis is hard to spot because it often appears when people are ill with other conditions; symptoms to look out for include slurred speech, mottled skin, severe breathlessness, extreme shivering, passing no urine in a day and the feeling that you’re going to die. In children, add skin that is abnormally cold, a rash that doesn’t fade on being pressed, fever, skin colour changes, difficulty waking and lethargy. If you notice any of these, call a doctor and ask: could it be sepsis?