Harvard-trained doctor: "Never drink bottled plastic water"... What's the reason?

A doctor in the United States has become a topic of discussion after revealing that they do not drink water from plastic containers due to concerns about nanoplastics.

On the 7th (local time), according to the UK media Daily Mail, Dr. Saurabh Sethi, a physician specializing in internal medicine and a graduate of Harvard Medical School, recently posted a video titled "Plastic Water Bottles: Health Risks" on his TikTok account.

In the video, he said, "I do not use plastic water bottles. Others should also stop using plastic water bottles," and "According to a study released earlier this year, it was revealed that there are 240,000 nanoplastics in water bottles sold in the United States." He continued, "Nanoplastics can penetrate human cells and potentially enter the bloodstream and major organs," and "Nanoparticles accumulated in the body are related to cancer and infertility." The video has currently garnered over 400,000 views and is receiving a lot of attention.

In particular, he warned that drinking water from plastic bottles on hot days could be the most harmful. Dr. Seti said, "Due to heat, more microplastics will be released," and advised, "Please use reusable containers made of stainless steel when drinking water."

The research mentioned by Dr. Seti in the video is the result of a study conducted by the Earth Research Institute at Columbia University in the United States, published in the international journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS" in January. According to the study, when measuring six 1-liter bottles of bottled water using Raman spectroscopy (a technique that detects vibrations of specific molecules by shining lasers from two directions to analyze nanoparticles), between 110,000 and 370,000 particles per liter were identified. Of these, 90% were nanoplastics, and the rest were microplastics. Among the plastics, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) was the most prevalent, followed by polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and polymethyl methacrylate. The research team estimated that these particles originated from plastic filters used during water purification before bottling.

Nanoplastics are plastics measured in nanometers (nm), which are one-billionth of a meter, and are smaller than microplastics, measured in micrometers (㎛), which are one-millionth of a meter. Previous studies have also confirmed that nanoplastics have the potential to cause various problems such as oxidative stress, immune dysfunction, cell proliferation disorders, and abnormal organ development.

<Source: Health Chosun>