Russian and Austrian chemists conducted a study in which it was found that microplastics obtained from seawater and coastal sediments begin to be covered with various proteins upon contact with human blood serum. Among these proteins, components involved in metal exchange processes were discovered.
The experiments revealed that at a particle concentration of five milligrams per liter, there is a significant decrease in the content of metals in the serum. Specifically, the copper content decreased by 37 percent, and the iron content decreased by 56 percent.
The results of this scientific work were officially published in the journal Analytica Chimica Acta. The press service of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation provided additional information about the discovery.