Microplastics and Cardiovascular Disease: Should Clinicians Be Paying Attention?

To provide clinicians with a concise introduction of microplastics potential role as a cardiovascular risk factor.

Microplastics have been identified in human cardiovascular tissues. In vitro and animal-based studies associate microplastics presence with increased oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, platelet aggregation disruption, and low-grade inflammation. Small human studies report associations between intraplaque or circulating microplastics and cardiovascular outcomes. However, these signals are associative, method-dependent, and vulnerable to exposure misclassification, co-pollutant confounding, contamination, and heterogeneous analytics.

Microplastics are pervasive and biologically plausible as a cardiovascular risk factor, supported by growing in-vitro evidence and incipient human association studies. Cohesive population-level measures to curb MP pollution should be embedded within policies addressing broader environmental cardiovascular risk factors. For clinicians, it remains premature to recommend personal-level mitigation strategies, and MPs are best regarded as an emerging exposure within the patient’s exposome that warrants awareness and further rigorous studies.