NOT SO FANTASTIC PLASTIC

Us pharmacists are a trusted, easy to access go-to medical professional that patients rely on and consequently we're sometimes tasked with more fundamental health questions.

Are plastics safe?

Click here for previous newsletters.

1. Counselling Conundrum: a real question from a patient

2. Concise Conclusion: a straight-forward patient-friendly answer 

3. Quick Wrap-up 

Clearly, there are nuances that may not be captured in this format. The goal here is to provide you with helpful counselling tips which often draw from multiple sources or those which are not commonly accessed by busy healthcare providers serving the community.

Counselling Conundrum: "Is it true that we consume a credit card's worth of plastic every day? Should I avoid all plastics?"

Concise Conclusion: No, this isn't true; a credit card weighs around 5 grams whereas studies estimate a much smaller number in the micrograms. However, there are many unknowns about plastics, and some studies link them to inflammation and issues with fertility. It's probably wise to reduce your exposure, given that there is mostly only indications of possible risks and no benefits.

So what can you do? First, even extreme measures cannot reduce your exposure to zero. Instead, stick with reasonable measures like avoid exposing your plastics (especially food/drink containers) to extreme temperatures, sunlight, or physical damage. This may include avoiding plastic coffee cups (lined with plastic), coffee pods, microwaving foods in plastic, dishwashing plastics, and avoiding cutting boards, and so on.

Quick Wrap-up: The real question is whether the plastics accumulate. We are less concerned with plastics being absorbed than excreted, and smaller particles are more concerning because they tend to accumulate. Also remind patients to consider the trade-offs; if you're spending all your time and money avoiding plastics, you're certainly at a net negative since you could be spending that time working on exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress reduction, and other things we know have an outsized positive impact on health.

Dive Deeper

1) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666911022000247

We hope you have found this useful. A reply to this email with any feedback or topic suggestion you may have would be greatly appreciated. Your input will be the key to making this newsletter the best it can be.