Are Microplastics Linked To Higher Heart Attack Risk?

WEDNESDAY, July 15, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Compared to healthier patients, people who suffer heart attacks tend to have higher concentrations of microplastics in their blood, a small new study has found.

In other studies, the tiny plastic particles — ubiquitous in modern environments — have been detected in organs and tissues throughout the body, researchers said in background notes. 

“However, very little was known about whether these particles are present in the coronary circulation — the blood flowing through the arteries that supply the heart — or whether environmental exposures such as smoking and air pollution might influence their presence," noted study lead author Dr. Pasquale Paolisso, from Sant'Andrea Hospital Sapienza University in Rome.

His team took blood samples from vessels supplying the hearts of 61 patients. Some patients had experienced a heart attack, some had chronic heart disease but no heart attack, and some had healthy arteries.

Blood-borne microplastics and (even smaller) nanoplastics were found in 84% of patients who'd had a heart attack, compared to 40% of those with heart disease but no heart attack and 32% of those with healthy circulation, the team reported.

Certain factors seemed to raise risks for higher blood levels of microplastics, Paolisso's team said. People who smoked were six times more likely to carry high levels, as were folks routinely exposed to high levels of air pollution. 

Every patient who smoked and regularly breathed in dirty air showed high blood levels of microplastics, the study showed, compared to just 12.5% of those with neither of those risk factors.

Study senior author Dr. Emanuele Barbato, also from Sapienza University, said the findings "do not prove that microplastics cause heart attacks, but they reveal a strong association between environmental exposures, microplastics in the blood and cardiovascular disease."

The findings were published July 15 in the European Heart Journal. 

Speaking in a journal news release, Barbato said that "in our study, smoking history was strongly linked to microplastics in the blood. Our findings suggest that smoking might make it easier for micro- and nanoplastics to enter the bloodstream via the lungs. Air pollution may act in a similar way."

In a journal editorial, experts led by Andreas Daiber, of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, said that nano- and microplastics are emerging as potential health threats.

"Evidence suggests that plastic pollution may represent a previously underestimated cardiovascular risk factor," the editorialists wrote.

They said that while the small sample size of the Italian study is an issue, "these findings represent early clinical evidence that plastic particles may be associated with acute cardiovascular events," such as heart attack.

More information

Find out more about microplastics at Yale University.

SOURCE: European Heart Journal, news release, July 15, 2026