Heating food in the microwave in a plastic container, even one labeled as suitable for use, does not protect against the dispersion of microplastics in food. Matteo Bassetti, full professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Genoa, said this in an interview with Fatto Quotidiano which was inspired by one of his videos on Instagram: plastic, with heat, releases microplastics. And microplastics are now everywhere.
The video in question, which we will see shortly, starts from a study published in Environmental Science & Technology by the University of Nebraska, which states that three minutes of microwaves would be more than enough to create the problem, a period of time in which one square centimeter of plastic can release up to 4.22 million microplastics and 2.11 billion nanoparticles into the food being heated.
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The interview: the point is not to create alarm
Bassetti has the ability to enter the public debate on health issues with clear tones. Here, however, he chooses the measure. “The point is not to create alarm, but to make it clear that the problem exists,” he tells Fatto Quotidiano. We are not, he points out, in the tobacco situation of the 1960s, when there were doctors who openly claimed that smoking was good for you. “But be careful: it is an underestimated phenomenon. We have exaggerated with plastic, it has become the solution to everything. And this cannot fail to have consequences.”
What the scientific literature says
The crux, for Bassetti, is the link between microplastics and chronic inflammation, a biological ground common to many serious pathologies. And he cites a specific piece of data: a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that in patients with microplastics in atherosclerotic plaques the risk of heart attack, stroke and death is significantly higher than in those without them. The research, conducted on 257 patients followed for approximately 34 months, found a 4.5 times higher risk in individuals with plastic particles in the plaques. “It is not yet proven causality,” admits Bassetti, “but it is not a statistical detail either.”
Regarding the fact that the official prevention guidelines have not yet implemented the topic, Bassetti is not surprised: “Scientific literature is forming now. But look, studies on this topic come out every day. The trend is now consolidated. I believe it will enter soon, because it is a problem that we have to face, precisely because we are now invaded by plastic”.
The battle over bottled water
Among the clearest positions is that on packaged mineral water. Bassetti tells Il Fatto that he also wants to carry on this battle: drinking tap water, in Italy, means reducing exposure to plastic by exploiting a water resource that he defines as “extraordinary”. Home microfiltration systems do the rest. The practical indications he suggests are three: reduce plastic bottles where possible, limit packaging, use alternatives such as water bottles made of other materials. “We used to use wooden material,” he recalls, almost as if to dispel the idea that plastic was inevitable from the beginning.
The problem of normality
The most interesting point of the interview is perhaps the least talked about. Bassetti doesn’t talk about catastrophe, he talks about normality, because plastic has become so pervasive that we have stopped seeing it as a problem. An industry that minimizes, consumers who look at convenience, environmental damage that goes “360 degrees”. The picture that emerges is not that of an emergency with a start and end date, but of a continuous, accumulated exposure, which research is learning to measure while the habit of ignoring it is already consolidated.
