Studies are coming out one after another that microplastics adversely affect not only the environment but also the human body.
A Korean research team has released an analysis that microplastics also have an effect on cancer metastasis.
The Korea Atomic Energy Medical Research Institute announced, "For the first time, we have identified the fact that microplastics absorbed into the body accelerate the growth and metastasis of cancer cells, and even cause resistance to anticancer drugs."
The research team made polystyrene, which is widely used in various disposable products, into microplastics with a size of 10 micrometers, and exposed it to gastric cancer cell lines from gastric cancer patients for 4 weeks.
The results showed that gastric cancer cells exposed to polystyrene grew up to 74% faster than unexposed gastric cancer cells.
Metastases to other cells were also 3.2 to 11 times more frequent.
Moreover, it was also investigated that cancer stem cell genes increased by exposure to polystyrene have resistance to various anticancer drugs.
The research results were published in the international medical journal Theanostics.