Scientists warn of hidden health dangers of tea bags

You may already know about tea’s health benefits, but there’s so much more you should know about tea bags. Tea, a beloved beverage enjoyed by millions around the world, has come under scrutiny due to a hidden danger lurking within tea bags that could be posing significant health risks to consumers and contributing to a global crisis of plastic pollution.

What researchers found
A new study found that millions and billions of plastics are released by commercially available teabags — and then absorbed into our bodies’ cells. When these tea bags are used to prepare an infusion, huge amounts of nano-sized particles and nanofilamentous structures are released, says the study, which was conducted by the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and published in the journal Chemosphere.

The scientists found that tea bags released huge amounts of plastic particles into hot water when brewed, experimenting on tea bags made from three plastics: polymers called polypropylene, nylon-6 and cellulose. The brands of tea used in the study were not named, but were described as ‘commercially available’.

More about the study
The scientists found that tea bags containing polypropylene released approximately 1.2 billion particles of plastic per drop — or milliliter — of tea. Those containing cellulosed released 135 million particles per drop and nylon-6 released 8.18 million particles per drop.

Then, the scientists stained the particles and exposed them to various cells from a human intestine, to track how they might interact inside the body once ingested.

After 24 hours, a specific type of digestive cell that produces mucus in the intestines had absorbed considerable amounts of micro and nanoplastics. The plastics had even entered the nucleus of some of these cells, which is where genetic material is kept. This suggests that digestive mucus might play a key role in absorbing micro and nanoplastics into the body before they are transported into the bloodstream and elsewhere in the body.

Why the study matters
Ricardo Marcos Dauder, one of the study authors from UAB, told Newsweek that nano plastics could easily “cross biological barriers” into the blood and then affect different organs. Inside cells, they could disrupt mitochondria, the “energy factory” of each cell, and our DNA, increasing the risk of cancer.

“We are exposed everywhere to micro-nano plastics… we don’t need to be in special conditions, in special places, to be exposed. Something as simple as preparing a cup of tea is enough to ingest, every time that you drink a cup of tea, millions or more nanoparticles or nanoplastics. ea bags are just one example of one particular route of exposure to these micro-nano plastics, but there are thousands of ways we can be exposed,” Ricardo Marcos Dauder added.