About Beating the Bonk and Eating Microplastics

By Kevin Kolodziejski 

Battle the Bonk on a bicycle and eight minutes feels like eight hours. But ingest the right stuff, somehow keep the pedals turning for another 640 seconds or so, and you’ll be all right — maybe even as right as rain. The latter case is how it played out for me, Fates be praised, in one race about 25 years ago.

I was part of a small chase group in hot pursuit of a three-man break near the end of a hilly 75-miler when the battle began. One that any spectator would correctly assume I was losing. For when the pace or the road kicked up, I would fall off the back and, in the immortal words of Phil Leggett, turn myself inside out to regain contact.

And I had turned my trusty five-serving flask of Hammer Gel upside down to squeeze out the last of it miles ago.

Inside Out and Upside Down

My brain had been turned upside down as well. When we passed the 67-mile mark, I needed to do the math more than once to be sure there were only eight miles to go. Then I became chilled, lightheaded, and aware my field of vision had narrowed. I feared the Bonk had won. That the next time I fell off the back I wasn’t getting back on.

But my wits weren’t gone, just molasses slow. For I only now recalled being handed a small, free sample as I made my way to the start line, which I had stuffed in a jersey pocket. The tiny freebie was, Fates be praised, a single-serving packet of Hammer Gel.

Praise the Fates and Consume the Freebie

Now I knew my glycogen level was extremely low, so I was expecting an immediate energy rebound seconds after consuming the freebie, but that didn’t occur. Luckily, the road leveled, the pace slackened, and I managed to hang on. The next ascent wasn’t much of one, so standing and keeping pace felt all right.  By the next real climb, however, I was feeling (and here I need to praise the Fates again) right as rain.

Which is when I glanced down at my computer and saw it was just about eight minutes to the second since I had ingested the gel — and recognized all this as a once-in-racing-career opportunity.

So I played possum on the penultimate ascent and fell off the back on purpose. I had reconned the course the day before and knew you could use the last descent and the draft of the group to slingshot the sprinter’s hill 200 meters from the finish line. Which I did, and, Fates be praised (for the last time, I swear), it worked.  I won the sprint — but not the race.  We never did chase down the three leaders.

So besides getting me really psyched to ride later today, what’s the value in retelling this story? It reinforces the point made here two weeks ago.

For Every Action There Is a Reaction

But the action the remainder of this article focuses upon is about a different sort of digestion, one unrelated to beating the Bonk. For it’s time you digest something about something so ubiquitous you probably ingest it anytime you eat anything that has been packaged.

Plastics.  Microplastics, really.

Extremely small pieces of plastic debris — so small they’re measured in nanometers, billionths of meters. They result from the use and breakdown of the more than 300 million metric tons of plastics produced in the world yearly, 60 percent of which gets used to package foods and beverages. As a result, you ingest and even inhale them. Past studies have shown this and that they are indeed ubiquitous.

Microplastics Are Ubiquitous

One published in October 2019 by Annals of Internal Medicine, for example, analyzed stool samples from eight volunteers and found 20 bits of microplastics for every 10 grams of feces. One published in June 2019 by Environmental Science Technology estimates that every year Americans breath in about 30,000 plastic particles, chow down on another 50,000 or so, and drink in up to 40,000 more if they regularly drink water from plastic bottles. The use of plastics has quadrupled in the past 30 years, so it’s no surprise other studies have found microplastics throughout the body, including the liver, kidneys, men’s testes, and women’s placenta. As well as both sexes’ arteries, specifically clogged arteries.

Arteries clogged enough that they cause atherosclerosis and require a carotid endarterectomy, a surgical procedure to remove plaque buildup from the carotid arteries — which are the main blood vessels supplying blood to the brain.

Microplastics Have Been Found in Plaque

A study published last March in the New England Journal of Medicine explains researchers from the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitella in Italy recruited 304 people who needed such surgery years ago. After the surgery, they analyzed the plaque extracted and found measurable amounts of polyethylene, a plastic commonly used to make plastic bags and food and drink packaging, 60 percent of the time. With the passage of time, and in the words of a doctor not involved in the study but asked about it in a Medical News Today article, came a second “terrifying” revelation, one “quite scary to think about.” During the next three years, those patients whose plaque contained microplastics were 4.5 times more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke, or die from any cause.

While it must be stressed that confounding variables may be at work here, any study finding microplastics in the body creates concern, particularly in this next case. When the amount of it found and place where it’s detected are called, in the words of a doctor involved in the research, “almost unbelievable.”

Microplastics Found in an ‘Almost Unbelievable’ Place

In the study performed by University of New Mexico researchers and published last month in Nature Medicine, the amount of microplastics found in one specific part of human cadavers averaged seven grams, the same weight as a plastic spoon. The specific spot: a region above and behind the eyes, the frontal cortex.  Part of the brain.

But there’s more that’s “almost unbelievable,” and it’s best explained in the UNM press release about the study written by Michael Haederle. When the amount of microplastics in the older brain tissue samples were compared to those from 2024, the researchers found an increase of it of over 50 percent over the last eight years. Moreover, Haederle notes the brain tissue from the corpses who had been diagnosed with dementia had up to 10 times as much microplastics in their brains in comparison to the cognitively okay. While he stresses that it can’t be inferred that microplastics cause or contribute to dementia based on this finding alone, one of the study’s co-authors, Matthew Campen, PhD,Distinguished & Regents’ Professor, UNM College of Pharmacy, uses the presser to summarize the situation with a bit of dark humor. “I have yet to encounter a single human being,” he says, “who says, ‘There’s a bunch of plastic in my brain and I’m totally cool with that.’”

Ways to Limit Your Exposure to Microplastics

To help you remain cool and limit your exposure, Campen advises reducing the amount of commercial meat you eat since its production relies heavily on plastics. Tracey Woodruff, UC San Francisco Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences PhD, MPH, suggests you limit meat ingestion for a second reason: because many plastics “hang out in fatty food.”

In an article written by Laura López González for the University of California San Francisco website, “I’m a Microplastics Researcher. Here’s How To Limit Their Dangers,” Woodruff also recommends other ways to reduce your exposure to microplastics. Some are to buy organic foods as often as possible, refrain from using plastic containers in the microwave, and don’t buy water in plastic containers.

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Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.