The simple way to remove microplastics from your tap water at home – after links to diabetes and stroke

SCIENTISTS have discovered a simple way to remove microplastics from tap water – after the tiny plastic fragments were linked to a higher risk of diabetes and stroke.

It's almost impossible to avoid microplastics, as the particles make their way into our water, food and even the air we breathe.

The plastic pieces – measuring less than five millimetres across – are shed by everyday items like cutting boards, tea bags, food packaging and some clothes as they gradually break down.

But they're also in products like cleansers and toothpaste – think of the tiny, hard beads in face scrubs.

Research published earlier this month found that some human brains have accumulated up to 7g of plastic – with worrying links to dementia – though the tiny particles also worked their way into people's liver and kidneys in smaller amounts.

Meanwhile, a more recent study warned that higher exposure to microplastics could up the risk of conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke.

Water bottled up in plastic containers tends to get contaminated with tiny plastic fragments, which sometimes find their way into tap water too, according to scientists.

Researchers from Guangzhou Medical University and Jinan University in China said: “Tap water nano/microplastics (NMPs) escaping from centralised water treatment systems are of increasing global concern, because they pose potential health risk to humans via water consumption.”

But the team found that simply boiling drinking water could filter out microplastics, as detailed in a paper published to Environmental Science and Technology Letters.

They conducted tests on both soft and hard tap water – which contains more minerals – adding in nanoplastics and microplastics before boiling the liquid and then filtering out any precipitates.

Nanoplastics are even smaller than microplastics, usually less than 0.001 millimetres in size.

Though effectiveness varied according to the type of water, in some cases up to 90 percent of the NMPs were removed by the boiling and filtering process.

Biomedical engineer Zimin Yu from Guangzhou Medical University observed: “This simple boiling water strategy can ‘decontaminate' NMPs from household tap water and has the potential for harmlessly alleviating human intake of NMPs through water consumption.”

In fact, most people would be able to get rid of microplastics from their tap water with tools they already have in their kitchen.

Using their boiling and filtering method, scientists were able to remove larger amounts of NMPs from hard tap water, which forms a hard residue called limescale when heated – think of the chalky substance in the inside of your kettle.

Researchers said microplastic fragments were trapped in the limescale crust as the water heated, which could then be sifted out through a simple filter like the stainless steel mesh used to strain tea.

But even with softer water, researchers were able to filter out roughly a quarter of NMPs with their process.

The study authors tested their strategy again by adding even more nanoplastic particles to water, and they were still able to fish most of them out by boiling and filtering the liquid.

Study authors said: “Drinking boiled water apparently is a viable long-term strategy for reducing global exposure to NMPs.”

They said the practice may become more widespread as awareness of microplastics increases.

Researchers called for further studies into how boiled water could keep reduce exposure to microplastics and even counter some of the health affects studies are beginning to uncover.

Sai Rahul Ponnana, a research data scientist at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Ohio who looked into the link between microplastics and chronic disease said: “This study provides initial evidence that microplastics exposure has an impact on cardiovascular health, especially chronic, noncommunicable conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke.”

The paper – presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session – showed that the effect of microplastics on stroke risk was comparable to factors such as minority race and lack of health insurance, both of which can increase the likelihood of the health emergency.

“When we included 154 different socioeconomic and environmental features in our analysis, we didn't expect microplastics to rank in the top 10 for predicting chronic noncommunicable disease prevalence,” Dr Ponnana added.

The results suggested that higher concentrations of microplastic pollution are associated with a higher prevalence of disease.

But researchers said evidence of a link doesn't necessarily mean that microplastics are causing these health problems.

More studies are required to determine whether there is a causal relationship or microplastic contamination is occurring alongside another factor that leads to health issues, they said.