We begin to discover the effect of microplastics on our body thanks to the most unsuspected thing: tap water

The heat comes and, with it, the thirst comes. On average, according to some public estimates, household consumption grows up to 44%. But those data are incomplete because, a good part of the water we drink, comes in bottle.

In Spain they are sold 5,331 million liters of bottled water every year. And it is a market in full growth. Sales grow annually at a rate of 2.5%. What we usually forget is that this type of product has consequences: the pressure pressure rises.

As? What does what? One might think that drinking water rises the normal artery pressure. After all, blood pressure is the force exerted by blood against the walls of the arteries. If there is more liquid in the system or more salt, there should be more pressure …

But not. Although obviously in extreme cases and, of course, specific conditions and compositions They alter the pressure Within a fork, the system has dozens of mechanisms to ensure that the blood pressure of a normal human being is what has to be.

And then? That is what some scientists from the Danube University asked when, in the middle of a very small clinical trial They discovered that the same did not happen with bottled water.

The Austrian team discovered that by keeping eight healthy people (of both genres) to a “water regime” of only tap water, His basal diastolic blood pressure dropped. It happened in men and in mujres, but in the latter the effect was much more striking.

Because? Right now we only have hypotheses, but the most solid are phthalates (chemical substances that make the most flexible and durable plastic). And, honestly, it is something quite interesting: because, although all the water we consume right now has complex microplastics and substances, the truth is that they do not have the same things.

And that is exceptionally good news. Not because with the available information is (or not) advisable to take (or stop drinking) bottled water. But because it is these little things that allow us to improve our understanding of What microplastics do in our bodies.

Image | Noppadon Manadee | Engin Akyurt

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