The tiny plastic particles were found in all 23 human testes in a new study, and all 47 testes from pet dogs.
Microplastics have crossed so many boundaries it is hard to keep track.
The ‘red flag’ of our consumptive lifestyles, they have reached the limits of the Earth - from the Mariana Trench to the tip of Mount Everest. These tiny particles of decomposed plastic have seeped into clouds, and been found buried in archaeological remains believed to be ‘pristine’.
They have challenged our ideas of bodily inviolability too, infiltrating every organ. What might have been considered the ‘purest’ parts of human life - placentas, babies, breast milk - contain microplastics.
So it comes as little surprise that human testicles have them too, as the most comprehensive study yet on microplastics and the scrotum confirms.
Less is known about what microplastics are doing to our bodies. But in the case of testicles, the new research suggests they could be lowering sperm count.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The ‘red flag’ of our consumptive lifestyles, they have reached the limits of the Earth - from the Mariana Trench to the tip of Mount Everest.
These tiny particles of decomposed plastic have seeped into clouds, and been found buried in archaeological remains believed to be ‘pristine’.
“The ubiquitous existence of microplastics and nanoplastics raises concerns about their potential impact on the human reproductive system,” the study, published in the journal Toxicological Sciences, states.
Sperm counts in western men have more than halved in the last few decades, with air pollution and exposure to pesticides frequently cited as factors.
“At the beginning, I doubted whether microplastics could penetrate the reproductive system,” Prof Xiaozhong Yu, one of the authors of the new study told the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
A smaller study in China last year also found microplastics in six human testes and 30 semen samples.
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