- Nanoplastics, particles less than 1 micrometer in size, are a significant environmental and health concern due to their prevalence and potential hazards. Americans could consume up to 3.8 million pieces of micro- and nanoplastics per year from protein sources alone. Infant formula has also been confirmed to contain microplastics
- Recent research found individuals with microplastics or nanoplastics in their carotid artery tissues have a 353% higher risk of cardiovascular events like heart attacks or strokes than those without microplastics in their arteries
- Microplastics and nanoplastics in the body can cause oxidative stress, tissue damage, and inflammation, leading to chronic diseases beyond cardiovascular issues
- To counteract the estrogenic exposure from plastics, progesterone, a natural estrogen antagonist, can be beneficial, with suggestions for its use and administration provided
- Prevention strategies include minimizing plastic use, opting for alternatives to plastic packaging, using reusable containers, and detoxing through methods like sweating in a sauna to excrete microplastics
(Mercola)—Nanoplastics — particles less than 1 micrometer in size, or 1,000th the average width of a human hair — have emerged as a significant environmental concern due to their widespread prevalence and potential health hazards to humans and wildlife alike. These microscopic fragments result from the degradation of larger plastic debris and can also be manufactured directly for various applications.
Nanoplastics have become ubiquitous in ecosystems around the world, from urban waterways to remote oceanic and terrestrial environments. Their pervasive presence is attributed to the widespread use and disposal of plastic materials globally.
Environmental Hazards
Nanoplastics pose several environmental hazards, including:
- Biodiversity loss — Nanoplastics can harm aquatic and terrestrial organisms, leading to reduced biodiversity. They have been found to cause physical and chemical stress in marine life, affecting growth, reproduction, and survival rates.
- Ecosystem disruption — Their presence in water bodies and soil can alter the chemical composition and physical properties of these environments, disrupting ecosystems’ balance.
- Food chain contamination — Nanoplastics can accumulate in the food chain, potentially leading to higher concentrations in top predators, including humans.
Microplastics Found in Food, Including Infant Formula
The environmental contamination is so severe, many foods now contain them, including chicken, pork, seafood, beef and plant-based meat alternatives, whether processed, minimally processed or unprocessed.1 The more processing a food has undergone, however, the more plastic it contains.
Researchers estimate that Americans consume up to 3.8 million pieces of micro- and nanoplastics per year from protein alone.2 The reason for this is because meats are packaged in plastic.
Recent research has also confirmed the presence of microplastics in all samples of infant formula tested (30 in all).3 The most frequently identified plastics were polyamide, polyethylene, polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate. According to the authors, children fed exclusively infant formula likely consume an average of 49 microplastic particles per day.
Nanoplastics Linked to Heart Attacks and Stroke
The potential health impacts of micro- and nanoplastics on humans have long been debated, but a recent study4 published in the New England Journal of Medicine marks a significant step in understanding the health implications of microplastic and nanoplastic exposure.
Microplastics and nanoplastics, defined by their minuscule size, can migrate through body tissues, potentially causing oxidative stress, tissue damage and inflammation.
Individuals with microplastics or nanoplastics in their carotid artery tissues have a 353% higher risk of cardiovascular events like heart attacks or strokes.
The study in question analyzed tissue from 257 individuals undergoing carotid endarterectomy to identify plastics in arterial plaques, revealing the presence of polyethylene (associated with asthma, hormone disruption, reproductive issues and dermatitis5) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC, linked to liver and reproductive damage6), among others. As reported by the authors:7
“Polyethylene was detected in carotid artery plaque of 150 patients (58.4%), with a mean level of 21.7±24.5 μg per milligram of plaque; 31 patients (12.1%) also had measurable amounts of polyvinyl chloride, with a mean level of 5.2±2.4 μg per milligram of plaque.
Electron microscopy revealed visible, jagged-edged foreign particles among plaque macrophages and scattered in the external debris. Radiographic examination showed that some of these particles included chlorine.”
Disturbingly, individuals with microplastics or nanoplastics in their carotid artery tissues were found to have fourfold higher risk of suffering a cardiovascular event such as heart attack or stroke over the next three years compared to those without such plastics. They were also more likely to die from any cause. As reported by the authors:
“Patients in whom MNPs [microplastics and nanoplastics] were detected within the atheroma were at higher risk for a primary end-point event than those in whom these substances were not detected (hazard ratio, 4.53).”
A hazard ratio (HR) of 4.53 means that people with microplastics in their arteries have a 353% higher risk of suffering a potentially lethal cardiac event than those without microplastics.
Should Microplastic Exposure Be Considered a Cardiovascular Risk Factor?
Lead author Raffaele Marfella emphasized the need for further research to confirm these findings,8 although the study already suggests a strong association between plastics and cardiovascular events in people with atherosclerosis.
The study’s implications are significant, according to pediatrician Dr. Philip Landrigan, who stressed the importance of addressing the potential cardiovascular risks posed by microplastics and nanoplastics in an accompanying editorial:9,10
“Although we do not know what other exposures may have contributed to the adverse outcomes among patients in this study, the finding of microplastics and nanoplastics in plaque tissue is itself a breakthrough discovery that raises a series of urgent questions.
Should exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics be considered a cardiovascular risk factor? What organs in addition to the heart may be at risk? How can we reduce exposure?”
Nanoplastics Pose Severe Hazards for Animals and Humans
CNN, which reported the findings, also highlighted research linking nanoplastics and microplastics to other potential harms, such as:11
Chronic inflammation — The presence of microplastics and nanoplastics in arterial plaques was linked to increased inflammation. Chronic inflammation, in turn, is a hallmark of most chronic diseases, not just cardiovascular disease, suggesting that plastic exposure could exacerbate or increase susceptibility to a wide variety of conditions.
Dysfunction of cells, organs and endocrine system — Nanoplastics, due to their small size, can migrate through tissues of the digestive tract or lungs into the bloodstream, invading individual cells and tissues in major organs. This can potentially interrupt cellular processes and deposit endocrine-disrupting chemicals, affecting the body’s normal functions.
Oxidative stress and tissue damage — Studies in animals have shown that exposure to micro- and nanoplastics may cause oxidative stress, tissue damage, and inflammation in cells. These effects could lead to various health issues, depending on the extent and duration of exposure.
Impaired cardiac function — Animal studies have also indicated that micro- and nanoplastics can alter heart rate and impede cardiac function, posing additional risks to cardiovascular health.
Risks to fetuses and young infants — Research in pregnant mice has found plastic chemicals in the brain, heart, liver, kidney, and lungs of the developing fetus within 24 hours after the mother ingested or inhaled plastic particles. This suggests that plastics can cross the placental barrier, potentially affecting fetal development.
Previous studies have also found microplastics in the human placenta12 and human breast milk13 — clear evidence that a mother’s plastic exposure can be directly transferred to her child both before and after birth.
Microbiome alterations — Studies have also found that microplastics can alter the makeup of microbial communities, reducing diversity14 and increasing the exchange of antibiotic-resistant and metal-resistant genes.15
Progesterone Counteracts Xenoestrogen Exposure From Plastics
In the featured video at the top of this article, best-selling author and high-performance coach Siim Land reviews the research linking arterial nanoplastics to a near-fourfold higher risk of cardiovascular events.
As noted by Land, microplastics contain xenoestrogens, which have been linked to obesity, infertility, cancer and more. Indeed, estrogen is a known carcinogen,16 and plastics is perhaps one of the most ubiquitous sources of estrogen for men and women alike.
Estrogen is also antimetabolic and radically reduces the ability of your mitochondria to create cellular energy in a form of ATP by depending on aerobic glycolysis (the Warburg effect) which radically impairs oxidative phosphorylation.
To counteract the hazards of this estrogenic exposure you can use progesterone, which is a natural estrogen antagonist. Progesterone is one of only four hormones I believe many adults can benefit from. (The other three are thyroid hormone T3, DHEA and pregnenolone.)
As a general recommendation, most adult males and non-menstruating adult women would benefit from taking 25 to 50 mg of bioidentical progesterone per a day, taken in the evening one hour before bed, as it can also promote sleep. For optimal bioavailability, progesterone needs to be mixed into natural vitamin E. The difference in bioavailability between taking progesterone orally without vitamin E and taking it with vitamin E is 45 minutes versus 48 hours.
Pre-menopausal women can also take progesterone but it is the last half of their cycle, approximately 14 days after the last day of their period and stopping when period returns. Another good reason for taking progesterone with vitamin E is because it binds to red blood cells, which allows the progesterone to be carried throughout your body and be distributed to where it’s needed the most.
Simply Progesterone by Health Natura is premixed with vitamin E and MCT oil. You can also make your own by dissolving pure USP progesterone powder into one capsule of a high-quality vitamin E, and then rub the mixture on your gums. Fifty milligrams of powdered progesterone is about 1/32 teaspoon.
Do not use synthetic vitamin E (alpha tocopherol acetate — the acetate indicates that it’s synthetic). Natural vitamin E will be labeled “d alpha tocopherol.” This is the pure D isomer, which is what your body can use. There are also other vitamin E isomers, and you want the complete spectrum of tocopherols and tocotrienols, specifically the beta, gamma, and delta types, in the effective D isomer.
I do not recommend transdermal progesterone, as your skin expresses high levels of 5-alpha reductase enzyme, which causes a significant portion of the progesterone you’re taking to be irreversibly converted primarily into allopregnanolone and cannot be converted back into progesterone.
Preventing Exposure Is Key
Of course, prevention — minimizing your exposure — really needs to be your first line of defense against microplastics. While that sounds easy enough, it can be tricky business, for the simple reason that micro- and nanoplastics are all around us, in our food, water, household dust, clothing, household and personal care items and even the air we breathe.
That said, making a concerted effort to rid your household of plastic can go a long way toward minimizing your and your children’s exposure. Here are a few pointers to get you started:
- Filter your tap water and avoid water bottled in plastic — If you need to buy bottled water, opt for glass bottles. Also make sure the filter you use to purify your tap water can filter out microplastics.
- Boil hard tap water — If you have hard tap water, consider boiling it before using it for cooking or drinking, as hard water traps more microplastics. Recent research shows boiling hard tap water for five minutes removes up to 90% of the microplastics in the water.17
- Choose alternatives to plastic packaging — Opt for products packaged in glass, metal, or paper instead of plastic. This can significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste that potentially breaks down into microplastics. At home, use wax paper, parchment paper or paper bags to store foods rather than plastic wrap.
- Use reusable containers — Replace single-use plastic bottles, cups, and containers with reusable alternatives made from safer materials like stainless steel or glass.
- Never microwave plastics — Heat can cause plastics to leach chemicals into food. Use glass or ceramic containers for microwaving.
- Avoid plastic cutting boards — Opt for wood or glass cutting boards instead.
- Opt for natural fibers — Whenever possible, choose clothing and other textile products made from natural fibers like cotton, wool and linen, as synthetic fabrics such as polyester shed microfibers and leach xenoestrogens.
- Wash synthetic clothes less frequently — When washing synthetic textiles, use a microfiber filter in your washing machine to trap synthetic fibers and prevent them from entering the water system.
- Opt for food grade cosmetics and personal care products — Some cosmetics, toothpastes, and personal care products contain microbeads or other plastic particles. Look for products free of these materials. Ideally, opt for all-natural, food grade products.
How to Detox Microplastics
Even if you’re diligent about avoiding plastics, some exposure will likely remain, so detoxing is another important strategy. Land cites research showing that blood donation can lower the levels of certain plastic chemicals in your blood, such as PFAS. If your iron levels are high, getting regular phlebotomy would help you kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, as blood donation is also the only way to lower your iron level.
One of the most effective ways to excrete microplastics from your tissues though is through sweating. I recommend using a near-infrared sauna with low EMFs for this purpose, as the near-infrared rays can penetrate far deeper into your body than far-infrared.
Other benefits of sauna use include improved cardiovascular fitness and reduced all-cause mortality, lower blood pressure, reduced dementia risk, improved mental health, strengthened immune function, improved athletic endurance, reduced inflammation, stem cell activation, improved insulin sensitivity and a reduction in stress hormones.
General Guidance for Sauna Use
Classical Finnish saunas are typically heated to 170 degrees F. or higher. An infrared sauna will rarely get that high, however, which means you may need to stay in a bit longer to get a good sweat. A benefit of SaunaSpace’s near- and mid-infrared bulbs is that you’re heating up from deeper within, so the air temperature doesn’t need to be as high as a traditional sauna for you to sweat.
As a general recommendation, stay in the sauna for 20 to 30 minutes, or until you reach subjective fatigue, which is a sign that you’ve maxed out the benefits you’re going to get. It’s not about reaching a point of suffering — just that point where you’re feeling mildly anxious and tired and want to get out.
As for the frequency, research has consistently shown that it’s dose-dependent, so the more often you do it, the greater the benefits. The sweet spot seems to be right around four times a week, because you’ll also be losing minerals along with toxins. So, you need to rehydrate and replenish those minerals to avoid mineral deficiencies.
For more details, including how to build your own near-infrared sauna, see “Near-Infrared Sauna Therapy — A Key Biohack for Health.”
- 1 The Epoch Times January 10, 2024
- 2 Newsweek January 13, 2024
- 3 Food Chemistry May 15, 2024; 440:138246
- 4, 7, 15 New England Journal of Medicine March 6, 2024
- 5 Million Marker, Polyethylene
- 6 NACHI.org PVC Health Hazards
- 8, 10, 11 CNN March 7, 2024
- 9 New England Journal of Medicine Editorial March 6, 2024
- 12 ZeroHedge March 9, 2024
- 13 Polymers 2022; 14(13): 2700
- 14 BJOG April 2024; 131(5):675-683
- 16 Science Daily December 13, 2002
- 17 ZeroHedge March 8, 2024
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
