It’s hard these days to find something you love to eat or drink that isn’t absolutely terrible for you.
Tea, we know, is one of those rare items that (despite the caffeine) is generally supposed to be good for your health.
Except…what about what it’s packaged in?
It turns out polymer-based tea bags could release micro- and nanoplastics into our bodies (even all the way into our intestines, in fact). The study does agree that not all tea bags are alike, but in general, you might want to reconsider how you get the healthy tea into your piping-hot water.
Five years ago, a study confirmed concerns over bags releasing plastic particles when boiled were valid. Water fleas exposed to those microplastics developed some concerning anatomical and behavioral abnormalities.
Since then, concerns over micro- and nanoplastics in the environment has risen steeply, though the jury is still largely out as far as their health effects in humans.
This new study tested three types of commercially available tea bags made from nylon-6, polypropylene, and cellulose bio-based polymer to determine how many microplastics were released in each.
The tested 300 pages in 600ml of 203°F water, and found that the polypropylene bags released a staggering 1.2 billion particles per milliliter. Cellulose bags released 135 million particles per ml, and the nylon-6 bags “only” released 8.18 million particles per milliliter.
That said, the number of particles is actually less important than how the type of particle might affect the body. For example, cellulose is familiar to our bodies, so we already know how to process it, while the other two options are completely foreign concepts.
The researchers took their findings a step further and attempted to learn how fast our intestines might absorb these particles over a 24 hour period. They weren’t able to find anything definitive, though the intestinal cells did not show any measurable damage.
All three sorts of particles did interact with the cells’ nuclei, though.
Previous studies have not been able to reliably identify the type of particles detected, and these researchers achieved that using six different approaches, including infrared spectroscopy and laser Doppler velocimetry.
Study co-author Dr. Alba Garcia-Rodriguez explains why this is a big deal.
“We have managed to innovatively characterize these pollutants with a set of cutting-edge techniques, which is a very important tool to advance research on their possible impacts on human health.”
In addition to health issues, there are environmental concerns, since the different types of teabags also end up in the trash. Some claim to be compostable, but no tests have been done to verify those manufacturers claims.
That said, tea drinking is overall considered healthy, and as of now, there is no evidence that any type of cancer is related to the ingestion of microplastics. They’re literally everywhere, and the body of research is currently trying to play catch-up.
If you’re worried, you can always become one of those loose-leaf tea drinkers.
It sounds like a fun thing to try, anyway.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about why we should be worried about the leak in the bottom of the ocean.