Reverse Microplastic Toxicity NATURALLY (Heals Mitochondria, Gut, Brain) | Dr. Josh Axe

The average person consumes one credit card a day in microplastics. The receipts you get, that ink on there is loaded with forever chemicals and microplastics. Teflon pans. I mean, these things are leaching microplastics, major, major chemicals, forever chemicals that damage your entire body. And that's disrupting your hormones. It's increasing your cancer risk.

Almost every health condition you can think of. A University of Newcastle study found the average person consumes 5 grams of plastic every 7 days, the exact weight of a credit card. And if you've watched The Plastic Detox on Netflix, maybe you've already seen this, but 6 couples were struggling with infertility. They did 90 days of removing plastics and doing a plastic detox.

They repaired their bodies, and the groups there got pregnant. That's not a coincidence. Here's the reality: microplastics are destroying our bodies. And here are some other statistics that are somewhat shocking. Okay, when we go and study a human brain, all right, there is a spoon's worth—a full spoon, imagine that—worth of plastic. In the brain.

When they studied men, they found that every single human male had plastic actually in their testicles, every single one. And microplastics are also found in our arteries. By the way, if you have higher levels of microplastics in your arteries and bloodstream, you have a 450% higher risk of a heart attack, a stroke, or early death.

So getting microplastics out of your body and not being exposed to them is one of the key things you can do for longevity and curing any health problem. Now, they're even finding microplastics in the umbilical cords of babies, in that blood being passed from a mother to a child. So there are so many toxins that we are being exposed to, but microplastics might be the worst offender.

And one area of your body that is heavily harmed by by microplastics is your gut lining. Okay, microplastics essentially are punching holes through your gut lining, causing a condition called leaky gut or intestinal permeability. And a 2023 study published in Cell Reports Medicine found that nanoplastic exposure triggers leaky gut within 14 days.

And that's how plastic gets from your stomach, by the way, into your bloodstream as it actually punches a hole through your intestines, gets into your bloodstream, and then it causes inflammation throughout your entire body. Now listen to this study. Babies are born pre-polluted. 100% Of placentas tested in 2021 were contaminated with microplastics.

Okay, and so we see this, as I mentioned before, we see babies being exposed very early on. The There are 20 times more plastic in infant feces than adults, and 39% of breast milk samples contained microplastics. This is according to another medical study. A 2025 Baylor Medicine study found significantly higher levels of microplastics in preterm births as well.

So it might be contributing to early births in children. And so this isn't just an adult and later on in life issue. A lot of us have been exposed since we were kids.

I mean, I think back about all the plastic containers I've drank out of, you know, every soccer practice, you know, drinking the— first off, not even the artificial chemicals and the flavorings and the food dyes that I got in, you know, things like Gatorade. But I mean, I was drinking out of plastic bottles all day, every day, plastic spoons. I mean, constantly exposed to plastics.

But most people don't realize how damaging it is to our bodies. And I want to walk you through how plastics wreck the gut. Okay, one thing they do is they damage 2 types of species of probiotics called Akkermansia and Lactobacillus, and they deplete them in the body. This disrupts then your tight junctions, and there's something called an LPS endotoxin spike.

So then basically a lot of these plastics, it's almost like they're leaking toxins. They destroy good bacteria.

They then damage the gut lining, and then they make, they make your gut more friendly to pathogens like parasites or H. pylori or Candida to live there and take the place of the good bacteria that you need to have in order to absorb nutrients and to not have food sensitivities and to overall have a strong immune system. And so number one, plastics destroy your gut health.

Here's another thing they destroy. They destroy your reproductive health. In a study, Dr. Shanna Swan discovered male sperm count has dropped 50% in the last 50 years. And in a 2024 study, microplastics were found in 100% of human testicles tested. Okay, men with the highest phthalate exposure had 50% lower testosterone. They had the lowest testosterone rates.

So if you are exposed to phthalates, microplastics and these chemicals, that means you will have lower testosterone. According to the study, it's causing major toxicity issues and it will then cause testosterone to plummet in men. And also, it's an issue for women.

And the reason why this is such a big issue for hormonal health is, is that these microplastics like DEHP and DBP and BBP, they act as xenoestrogens, okay? They act as sort of these fake estrogens in the body. And so what this does for women is, it elevates your estrogen. So estrogen goes up, progesterone actually gets pushed down even further. So now there's this big gap here.

And when estrogen goes up, that then actually imbalances the conversion of T4 to T3, so it throws off your thyroid hormones. But it also throws off your estradiol and your progesterone, which greatly increases your risk of things like PCOS, endometriosis, fertility decline, early menopausal symptoms and early perimenopause.

It makes your menopausal symptoms much worse and it actually ages your body. You get moved into aging prematurely.

And some of the places these hide, of course, we've talked about the plastic containers, plastic bottles, but also the fragrances and perfumes, vinyl flooring, plastic wrap, personal care products, Microplastics are not just in what you think of as plastic containers; they are hidden all over the place. In fact, they're even found.

You know the receipts you get when you check out of the grocery store? That ink there on the little sheet of paper on your receipt—that has been shown that's a form of BPA, and it's absorbed in the skin in 90 seconds. So if they ask you, "Do you want a receipt next time?" Just say pass or send me an email. That's a much better option because.

Even that is greatly lowering testosterone in men, causing estrogen to go high in women, which is a big causative factor of estrogen-based cancers like breast cancer. Cancer, dementia, heart disease— they're coming for so many people. And it's not just because of what most people think, which is that it's bad luck or bad genetics.

The truth is Your daily choices are either creating health or setting the stage for disease, and your doctor is probably reading your blood work all wrong. They're missing the cellular issues behind the symptoms. I'm currently offering a simple at-home blood test that actually tests for the right things. And just as importantly, it comes with proper interpretation of the results.

This new test flips the script. The future of interpreting test results is here. If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to mybloodwork.com. So here's the reality. Your hormone imbalances, it might not be genetic. Your tiredness might not be related to your adrenal glands or even cortisol.

It might be plastic poisoning your power plants, the mitochondria in your cells. In fact, nanoplastics reduce mitochondrial membrane potential by 35%. Okay, that's where your body creates ATP and cellular energy. This is also a major causative factor for cancer. For anyone with hypothyroidism, chronic fatigue syndrome, or just general fatigue.

If you're saying to yourself, you know what, I am more tired than I should be, right? And you're in the afternoon and you're tired, you wake up tired, or you're just exhausted by the end of the day, microplastics contribute and it's causing a mitochondrial meltdown. Nanoplastics cross what we call your mitochondrial membrane.

So they actually get inside not only the cell, okay, you've got a cell membrane. They actually pass into your cell membrane, then they actually pass through the mitochondrial membrane and actually inside the mitochondria. And what this does is it causes oxidative stress. Imagine you go into a machine and then it just starts wrecking and damaging things everywhere, throwing everything off.

So it literally is causing your mitochondria to crumble and fall apart. And again, this is a big causative factor. I mentioned hypothyroidism and chronic fatigue and general low energy. But also this is gonna contribute to brain fog, long COVID.

You know, if you're exposed to long COVID, some people were exposed to COVID and they felt awful for 2 weeks and then they were fine and had zero symptoms whatsoever. I was one of those people, had no symptoms after COVID, felt just fine. There are some people now, years later, that are still exhausted.

And if you were already had a 35%, 50% damage inside your mitochondria, from a lot of excess plastic exposure, and then you have an issue like a virus come along, well, now your body was so— it's just easy to break down your body.

It's sort of like if you're lifting weights and maybe you can handle, you know, a couple plates on each side, but then somebody puts a couple more plates on and your body just buckles and crashes. That's what's happening to your mitochondria. And this is where taking supplements like NAD+, CoQ10, PQQ, you know, certain B vitamins.

I mean, these nutrients are critically important for mitochondrial function, but if you don't go and get rid of the plastics exposures and detox the plastics, oftentimes your body can never fully recover. Now, here's the most important thing of all. It's longevity, living a long, healthy life.

And a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, They did a study on arterial health and the health of the heart and bloodstream and on mortality. This study was done on 257 patients over 34 months. This is a study done in 2024. Here's what they found.

Microplastic exposure, when it's the highest in people, increases your risk of dying by 450%. That's 5.4— 4.5 times. It's a higher risk of a heart attack, a stroke, and early death. When they found microplastics specifically in your carotid artery plaque. So, so here's where it becomes really deadly. You expose yourself to microplastics.

You also have inflammation in your diet, in your, in your body, like high CRP levels. It could be you have an inflammatory diet or an autoimmune disease or some sort of issue, joint pain, but there's inflammation happening. Then you have plastic exposure that gets lodged in the arterial plaque. Your chance of mortality goes up dramatically.

And so we know that microplastics, they damage your gut, they damage your cells in the area of the mitochondria, they also damage your brain. Researchers analyzed 91 human brains and found microplastic concentrations averaging a plastic spoon's worth in that 91 people. Now here's a kicker. They did this study before in 2016. Okay, they did it again in 2024.

There's an 8-year difference between 2 studies they did on the amount of plastics found in the average person's brain. In 2024, they found 50% more plastic on average than in 2016, just 8 years earlier, okay? 50% More. So this means that we are exposed to way more plastic now than we even were 8 years ago. And what happens is our blood-brain barrier is very similar to our gut lining, okay?

You can have a leaky gut, You can also have a leaky brain barrier, and it acts like a chain-link fence, like keeping certain things out. But when you tear a hole in it, which is what happens, these microplastics, they actually go to the brain. Heavy metals do a very similar thing. Heavy metals, microplastics, certain toxins, they go and they can damage that blood-brain barrier.

And especially nanoplastics, some of these are so small they're almost like bugs or a virus. They get through the blood-brain barrier. They start to cause and increase your symptoms. They can increase brain fog symptoms. I also believe they can be closely connected to issues like MS and dementia and any sort of neuroinflammatory illness. Microplastics could be at the root of it.

All right, so I want to walk you through the biggest microplastic offenders that are in your kitchen right now, and a lot of them are really surprising. Here's a big one. Tea bags. A lot of these tea bags say— this one here in particular, this has microplastics in it.

Okay, so if you're doing a lot of these tea bags, if you're, if you're buying herbal tea, and I'm talking about peppermint or chamomile or ginger or any type of tea, and it doesn't say microplastic-free, BPA-free, free of chemicals, this is leaching into your body at super high levels. So tea bags, one of the worst offenders of microplastics. Now listen, I want to encourage you, drink lots of tea.

But just make sure to drink loose leaf tea or buy tea where you— they don't have these plastics in the actual tea bags themselves. And then another big one is water, right? We know bottled water leaches a lot of plastic chemicals into water supplies. So switch to stainless steel, switch to glass. Cardboard is probably a better option as well if you're traveling around. Stay away from the plastic.

And I would say also getting a water filter. Right. One of the most toxic things in your home is your water that's city water. And so getting a Berkey or a ROAR or a reverse osmosis filter, a great idea. But I would say the biggest offenders, water and tea, are 2 of the biggest that you want to stay away from. Next up are plastic cutting boards.

Think about every time you are cutting an onion, cutting vegetables, doing anything on here, they're leaking microplastics into your food. Much better option. Do a water— one of my favorites, bamboo cutting board. It's a great option here. So bamboo cutting board, much, much better option. That's what we use in the Axe household. This is a brand I really like, Caraway, so you could try them.

Good option there. And, and then a few others. Teflon pans. I mean, these things are leaching microplastics, major, major chemicals, forever chemicals that damage your entire body, causing estrogen to go high, testosterone low. Damaging your hormones. So staying away from these. And of course, switching over to a couple of my favorites, stainless steel. You can also do cast iron.

That's a great option. You see, we got the cast iron here. And if you don't like kind of the heaviness of the cast iron, I love that. But if you want something a little lighter, but also really effective, you can do ceramic. This is another— this is brand Caraway again. These are great options here to use. And then I want to go— here's a big one. And by the way, I'm guilty of this.

I have used a Vitamix for over 20 years now, and I've used the plastic container up until 2 years ago, almost 2 years ago, a little over a year and a half ago. I switched over to— there's now a stainless steel Vitamix top that you can buy and use with your Vitamix. Or if you're— if you have a blender at home, you could buy a glass top.

Or if you don't have a blender, buy one that has stainless steel or glass as the top. But think about this, a lot of people have had these, these plastic containers for 1, 5, 10, 20 years. I mean, I've had mine for over 10 years, my blender, and these plastics, as you use them in the dishwasher, as they blend, think on high speed, they're leaching microplastics.

And every time you're trying to make a healthy smoothie, it's leaching into your smoothie, your superfood smoothie. It's now a super microplastic smoothie. That's one of the problems. So switching out for a stainless steel option or a glass option is something you absolutely want to do. And then a few other things here. Here's some surprising ones around the house.

Baby toys have a lot of microplastics in them, okay? And kids are putting in the mouth or chewing on them. So, and of course, you know, kids are eating all kinds of plastic stuff, right? Plastic baby bottles. Anytime you can switch to glass or BPA-free or, or stainless steel, better option. And, uh, and wood toys.

I mean, just, but trying, trying to stay away from A lot of plastics, especially when you have infants that are putting it in their mouth. Those are the most important ages. Okay. For your, for your kids to be building with Legos, of course those are plastic. It's not as big of a deal because they're just touching it with their hands and fingers and that's it.

But putting it in their mouth, that's where it really becomes an issue. And there's a few other things I want to mention here. Of course, the containers you're using at home, right? The plastic containers. Switching over to glass. Is— now listen, the lid's not that important. Your food's not touching the lid.

The lid can be plastic or rubber, whatever it is, but you do want this part to be glass, especially if you ever heat it up. That's where it becomes really important as well. And then a few others here, just kitchen utensils, right? All of these sort of things, switch out for, for wood. Much better options. I showed you here, these are great options here for these, these containers.

So this is glass here. Now it's plastic top. That's, that's fine. Again, your food's not constantly touching that, or you're not heating up the plastic top. But glass here is a great option here. So that can be a good option there. That's another great caraway product. Again, your cups, you know, measuring cups, rather than plastic, using metal there, that's good. And oh, here's a big one.

Here's one of the last ones I wanna show you, but I'm not even gonna pick this up, it's so toxic. Okay, this is a receipt. All right? The receipts you get from the grocery store, from the convenience store, from whatever shop you're going to, department store, that ink on there is loaded with forever chemicals and microplastics, something called phthalates.

This has been shown in clinical studies to greatly decrease testosterone in men, throw off the estrogen in women. It's a major hormone disruptor. This is connected to that microplastic family when we look at the phthalates. So you wanna stay completely away from microplastics. This is one of the absolute worst offenders there.

And by the way, one of the big things these microplastics do is they leach into your cells, they damage your mitochondria. So do everything you can to get rid of the receipts and the chemicals and the microplastics in order to heal your cells.

And if you want to learn more about how to heal your cells and detoxify your body at the cellular level, hey, I recorded an advanced webinar where I walk you through exactly how to heal your cells, heal your hormones, detoxify your whole body using foods, herbs, and lifestyle medicine. So if you wanna learn how to heal yourself in depth, don't miss this webinar training.

You can click the link below to watch that advanced training on how to heal your cells, heal your hormones through the power of cellular detoxification. When it comes to your kitchen items, just make some of the simple swaps. Here's the big ones, okay? Change out your water filter, get a good water filter. Stop drinking out of plastic water bottles.

Try and switch those over to glass or stainless steel. Switch over some of your cookware. I mean, if you could just do those things alone, it's going to make a major difference in you getting— reducing your exposure to microplastics.

Because we talked about this, the average person consumes the average of one credit card a day in microplastics, and that's disrupting your hormones, it's increasing your cancer risk, almost every health condition. You can think of.

And so if you can eliminate your exposure, number one, and then follow a diet to get rid of the microplastics as well, you're going to be so much healthier and happier for it. And by the way, one of the questions I always get is, Dr. Axe, hey, what, what are brands and products I can trust or I should buy that I can replace the plastic with?

Listen, there are quite a few good brands out there, but one I personally use and really like is Caraway. I mentioned them earlier. I mean, they've got all kinds of great products. They literally have cutting boards. Those are Caraway. The utensils, the storage containers, the cutting board, the— all of it is Caraway. So Caraway is a great brand.

They do stainless steel, they do ceramic, they do wood, they do natural, non-toxic ingredients. They specialize in organic, non-toxic products. And you can go on their website because I've purchased from them and because I like to support them. You can go and get 10% off, I think, if you enter my full name, it's Dr. Josh Axe.

If you enter that on their site, you'll get, I believe, an extra 10% discount. And when you bundle their products together, I think it's 20% discount. So you can get a really big discount on their products when you go to caraway.com and enter the code Dr. Josh Axe on checkout there for a discount there.

But again, there's a lot of great brands, but this is one I personally love and recommend and use if you want to know one of the best brands here to help you go microplastic-free and toxin-free. Now, in addition to the kitchen, there are some really hidden sources that I think even when I heard them surprised me. Number 1, I mentioned this, receipts. Number 2 is this, cheap HVAC filters.

Think about this, the air in your home can be filled with microplastics with just regular HVAC filters that you have that's supposed to be cleansing your air, can be releasing microplastics. The third one is this, personal protective equipment, masks like the N95s, they actually will shed microplastics early on in using them.

And here's the fourth one, synthetic clothing, especially athletic clothing. You know those, you know those skin-tight, you know joggers that people are wearing today, those contain microplastics. So like your $128 yoga pants, They are shedding plastic into your skin every time you exercise and sweat.

In fact, Dr. Shannon Swan in The Plastic Detox said that your skin absorbs about 60% of what you put on. So polyester athleisure releases up to 700,000 microfibers per wash. So you're not just wearing plastic, you are absorbing it. And again, polyester. Polyester is one of the biggest offenders. And listen to some of these brands. Lululemon is like 86% nylon and polyester.

Okay, so when you're wearing those skin-tight leggings from Lululemon, that can be leaching plastic into your body. Athleta, okay, or Nike, their Dri-FIT products, or Under Armour, or even Alo Yoga, right? So here's what happens. You sweat. You have heat and you have friction, okay? That can drive those microplastics even deeper into your body. And here's what you want to change to.

Actually, this is what I'm wearing now, is I am wearing wool, okay? Every time I wear underwear, pants, socks, everything I wear for the most part is wool or organic cotton. Now listen, I think bamboo can be okay, linen.

There are some other good materials, but for myself, Merino wool, organic cotton are the things I personally use the most, a little bamboo here and there, but the organic cotton and wool is really what you want to look into and switch over to. Hey guys, I'm here with my good friend, Dr. Dave Jockers. In fact, we've been friends for more than 20 years.

He runs the podcast, the Dr. Dave Jockers Functional Nutrition Podcast. Dr. Dave, tell us a little bit about what your podcast is about. Yeah, absolutely. We, we dive deep on functional nutrition, really how to personalize your nutrition plan for better energy, mental clarity, better hormone balance. And we talk a lot about cellular health, mitochondrial function, cell membrane.

We do a deep dive on every major nutrition topic and natural health topic. So everything you need right there at your fingertips. Dr. Jocker's Functional Nutrition Podcast. I wanna encourage you, run out and listen to the Dr. Jocker Show. Again, I'm a big fan of it. I think you will be as well. Now, I know something that a lot of doctors talk about is how toxic our environment is.

And obviously, I spent some time doing that, talking about microplastics. But now I want to get into the details of how do you actually detox if you've been exposed to microplastics, if you have low testosterone, if your estrogen's too high, if you know that toxicity is part of your issue, if you have any of the symptoms we've talked about related to toxicity, what can you start to do?

Well, I want to walk you through my 7-step detox protocol of what to do in order to get these toxins out of your system. And so the 7-step protocol is this: eliminate, filter, sweat, bind, use glutathione, support your bile, use fiber— that's really supporting more of your liver and your gallbladder there— and then potentially fasting. So number 1, of course, is eliminate your exposure.

I mean, that is the first thing that we need to do is eliminate and filter. So again, what I would just do, listen, go in your kitchen and take all the plastic containers, the plastic water bottles, the plastic everything, and just swap it out for stainless steel and glass and ceramic and bamboo cutting boards. I mean, just make those natural holistic switches. Okay, similar thing.

I mean, maybe look at— listen, I'm not telling you you got to change all your clothes right away, but maybe next time you buy clothes, just be more conscious of, hey, Can I get this in cotton, or can I do merino wool? Those are better options. Number 2 is filter your water. Listen, you don't have to go and get a whole house filter, just your drinking water.

Get a reverse osmosis or a solid carbon block filter, like, you know, or something like a Berkey or a ROAR. But get a good quality water filter for your drinking water that removes, you know, most of the time these are going to remove 90% or 99% of microplastics.

Okay, so that's what I would encourage you to do for step number 2, because the studies show— listen, you're constantly drinking water, constantly you're using it in everything, and there are microplastics and other toxins we didn't even mention in there as well. Number 3, try and sweat a couple days a week.

This is why infrared sauna, one of the reasons why I'm such a big fan and there are so many benefits. Infrared saunas help you sweat, help you detox, getting rid of some of these chemicals. In fact, the Mayo Clinic has said sweat is confirmed for the elimination of phthalates and BPA. So we know that actually sweating does help your body detox.

Now you can also go and cycle or run or work out to the point where you're sweating, and that's fantastic too, but infrared sauna, laying out in the sun, Those are also wonderful. And then when you're doing this, of course, rehydrate with water and maybe some electrolytes and water that's filtered. Okay. Number 4 is this.

If you're going to do a detox, use a binder, but on a regular basis, use light binders. What light binders are, you know, activated charcoal is a very strong binder. You typically don't want to do that for more than a month because it is so strong. And for a lot of people, it'll cause constipation over time. Clay is a step down from it. It's a strong binder.

Not quite as strong, but that can cause some issues. You can take clay a little bit longer, but you can take mild binders. Fiber would be in that category, upping your fiber intake. Specific types of fiber like modified citrus pectin. This is often used as well in cancer protocols, major benefits because it will detox and bind and pull things out of your body while not causing constipation.

Chlorella, zeolites, fulvic and humic acid found in things like shilajit. These natural organic binders are great options and they're often best taken between meals, though some of these more natural ones you could take it with a meal. But I would do it either right before bed, first thing in the morning, or between meals if you're gonna take one of these natural binders I mentioned.

And then the number 5 would be this, support glutathione in your body. Glutathione is your master antioxidant It is what's going to support your detoxification system. Think about it like this: in order to support your muscles, you want to eat muscle meat, right? So you want to eat a chicken breast or, or, or, or, uh, you know, a filet mignon beef. You want to support that organ.

In order to support the liver and your cellular detoxification system, you really want to boost your glutathione levels. And this is where taking The precursor to glutathione, N-acetylcysteine, NAC, is fantastic. You can do 600 to 900 milligrams 2 to 3 times daily. Sulforaphane from broccoli sprouts or just eating sprouts, major benefits.

You know, the sprouts that you put in sandwiches or on a salad, those have compounds that are tremendously beneficial. Herbs like milk thistle, really great for glutathione support. And then liposomal glutathione is also great. But you wanna support glutathione if you were gonna do a micro, plastic detox or any type of detox. Number 6 is up your fiber and your bile flow.

Now I mentioned modified citrus pectin. In addition, eat flax and chia seeds. You could take some psyllium husk fiber. Acacia fiber is also great. And then herbs, herbs that are bitter tend to support bile flow. So drinking dandelion tea, doing some artichoke, As a tincture, or burdock.

I mean, these have major, major benefits there, of course, along with the milk thistle of supporting bioflow in the body. And then you can do some fasting, even if it's one day a week, like skipping breakfast and lunch as the early church did, that's a great option. But doing a fast periodically can be beneficial.

Now listen, if you are weak and you're tired and you don't have great health, doing intense fasts is not, not a good idea. You really want to stick to those 3 meals a day, getting a lot of fruits, vegetables, organic meat, bone broth, those types of foods.

But if you are generally healthy and not weak, or you're— and you're not depleted with a condition like hypothyroidism or chronic fatigue, then doing some fasting can support autophagy and have great benefits as well. Now, one of my single favorite supplements for supporting microplastic detox are targeted probiotics. And there are strains like AB22. This is a soil-based organism.

If you ever see SBO, soil-based probiotics, Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus coagulans, these are great for getting rid of microplastics. They're my favorites. Also though, Lactobacillus plantarum, this is what's found in sauerkraut, tremendous benefits as well. Lactobacillus paracasei, that's also great.

So, so, but getting a, soil-based probiotic and eating sauerkraut, but getting more probiotics in your diet absolutely will help rid your body of microplastics. Now, there is a very advanced therapy that's not yet legal in the United States, but it should be sometime next year.

In fact, this is something that we're going to offer, and I have a clinic in Nashville called the Longevity Clinic, and in that clinic we will be the first to offer this therapy, we think, in January of next year. But right now, You can't do this advanced therapy in the United States.

You can go to Europe for it, but it's called inuspheresis or therapeutic apheresis, and it's blood filtration that physically removes plastic from circulation in your body.

In a 2025 pilot study on 21 patients, some with ME and some with chronic fatigue syndrome, they did a double— they used a double filtration plasmapheresis Up to 70% of patients reported measurable symptom improvement, and this is the first direct clinical evidence that plastic can mechanically be removed from the human blood with these advanced types of therapies.

And so in January of 2027, I believe that this will be available as well in the United States in really advanced cellular and functional medicine clinics like the Longevity Clinic. Now I want to walk you through the So let's dive into the top 10 foods that are going to have the greatest detoxification benefits.

By the way, if you go into the show notes, you can download our guide, our PDF on how to detox microplastics, and you'll get the exact supplements, the whole food list, everything, the exact protocol on how to detox microplastics. Just go to the show notes and you can download the PDF there. So let's dive into the top 10 foods to detox microplastics. Is broccoli sprouts.

Broccoli sprouts upregulate phase 2 liver detoxification, and according to Johns Hopkins University, it increases liver detoxification by 200%. Next up here, number 2, are cilantro and chlorella. Now these are a really great pair because cilantro helps detoxify and chlorella binds to toxins. So these are even more powerful together. Number 3, wild-caught small fish.

Like anchovies, sardines, mackerel, and salmon could be on this list as well. Omega-3s reduce inflammation and overall also support detoxification. Number 4 is bone broth. Now, here's why bone broth is so powerful. Bone broth contains a compound called glycine, and glycine is one of the necessary building blocks for your body to make glutathione. Now, glutathione is your body's master antioxidant.

It's what supports detoxification, especially of the liver, gallbladder, and lymphatic system. And so getting more glutathione is great. Glycine helps support that and overall supports liver detoxification. Now, when most of the time when people think of bone broth, they don't think of liver detoxification, but it helps with that.

It also has proline, which helps rebuild and heal from the damage that microplastics can do to your body. Number 5 are bitter greens. Remember, bitter is better. They stimulate bile flow, and bile flow is what helps bind to and causes your body to detoxify, especially via your gallbladder, your liver, but really it's what amplifies your body's detoxification process.

Bitter supports bile release, and that's also going to help bind to the toxins and get them out of your body. Number 6, wild blueberries. Now, here's why blueberries, especially wild, are so powerful.

When you buy those smaller blueberries that are sweet, but also they've got a strong sour flavor, that sour flavor comes from a compound called anthocyanins, which is very similar to or the same compound that you're going to taste in things like cranberries. So when you taste a berry that's a little bit sour, that sourness is coming from anthocyanins.

That's been shown in studies to support liver detoxification there. And then in addition to the wild blueberries, we have Pomegranate. Okay. Now, pomegranates, one of the things that happens with microplastic consumption is it damages your mitochondria. Your mitochondria are your power plants. They're the batteries of your body. When those are damaged, you get tired, fatigued.

Not only do you feel physically tired, your organs get tired. They can't work as well. And so when you consume pomegranates, they're high in ellagic acid that can be converted into something called urolithin A. And that is a compound that helps you recycle and rebuild and heal your mitochondria. So doing several tablespoons a day of pomegranates, really powerful.

So think about, hey, what's a great breakfast for you? Sitting down and having some wild blueberries, pomegranates, a great way to go. Number 8 here, a really great combination of garlic and onions. Now garlic and onions contain sulforaphane. These are compounds that detoxify microplastics. They also have antimicrobial properties, so they can help kill off Viruses, bad bacteria.

They have anti-candida properties. Here's something else that makes them unique: they have a unique type of fiber. They're a prebiotic fiber that helps good bacteria grow. So lots of benefits there with garlic and onions. And then avocado—they contain avocados contain compounds that are precursors to building glutathione again, and they're also really high in fiber.

They're also high in magnesium and potassium, two minerals required for cellular. Detoxification. And number 10 here, one of my all-time favorites— in fact, I had this for breakfast this morning— matcha green tea. Matcha contains a compound called EGCG that stands for epigallocatechin.

These catechins have very similar antioxidant properties to the wild blueberries, which also support healing your blood-brain barrier as well as your mitochondria and your cells. And so again, matcha green tea for breakfast, Really great for filtering out any toxins out of the body. So that's the top 10.

And so maybe think about your plate like this, you know, starting off your morning with, you know, doing some, you know, a bone broth protein powder. So you're doing some protein that's collagen-based or bone broth-based, that's going to get you your glycine. And then for breakfast as well, start doing some wild blueberries and pomegranates. That's a great meal.

Maybe for lunch you have a grass-fed burger and you do sautéed garlic and onions there. Maybe you do an avocado on that burger as well. And then for dinner, wild-caught salmon. Maybe that's as part of a salad with some broccoli sprouts there, some microgreens, you know, some bitter greens, and have some matcha green tea there, you know, for breakfast as well.

But if you followed a meal plan like this, it is a perfect plate for detoxifying microplastics. Now I want to dive into the top 5 supplements for detoxifying microplastics.

Now listen, there's a lot that you can take, a lot of things are beneficial, but the most beneficial here are number 1, targeted probiotics, soil-based organisms, Lactobacillus plantarum, which is found in sauerkraut, other species of Lactobacillus that you're going to find in things like yogurt, greatly beneficial. So you can get this as a food but also take it as a supplement.

I personally, with my patients and myself, take a very high dose of soil-based organisms. You could take up to 1 trillion probiotics or at least 100 billion probiotics for the ultimate benefits of detoxification, but very ultra-high-dose probiotics are the best for detoxification. Number 2, sulforaphane. This is broccoli sprout extracts. We talked about the sprouts earlier.

Eat those, those are great. You can also take a more concentrated supplement form. Number 3, high-capacity antioxidants. These protect your cells from the damage that microplastics do. Number 4, natural binders like chlorella, modified citrus pectin, and other forms of fiber are great detoxifiers. And then number 5, this is probably my favorite.

I would say number 1 and number 5 are the 2 must-haves. Number 5 is NAC, N-A-C, that stands for N-acetylcysteine. N-acetylcysteine is a precursor to glutathione, so it's the number one supplement that's going to help drive and build up your glutathione levels.

And again, glutathione is your body's master antioxidant that supports and really runs detoxification of your liver, your gallbladder, also impacts the lymphatic system. So for your body to actually be strong enough to get rid of the microplastics, N-acetylcysteine, the most important on the list. So really think about it like this: N-acetylcysteine, this is going to support liver detoxification.

The probiotics and the fiber, those are going to support your detoxification of your digestive system and your intestines and colon to get microplastics out of your body. So if you can follow this plan of consuming those top 10 foods and these top 5 supplements as part of your microplastic detox protocol, It's going to go a long way to helping rid your body of the toxic effects of microplastics.

And so here's your assignment. For the next 30 days, swap one plastic exposure at a time. Week 1, change your water, right? Get a water filter. Number 2, change some of your food storage. Number 3, start changing some of your clothing. And number 4, get rid of the toxic personal care products. Start using things that are essential oil based. Using natural ingredients like coconut oil.

Those are so much better and they're toxin-free. And here's something I truly believe. I believe that you are going to start noticing a difference in 30 days. And I want you to mark, how do you feel now on a scale of 1 to 10? Make these changes and then let me know how you feel 30 days from now. And by the way, tag me online.

I'd love to hear from you on Instagram or YouTube, anywhere on social media, on Facebook, and tag me and let me know, you know what, Dr. Axe, I did your detox. I noticed this improvement, I feel better. So make sure to tag me, 'cause I would love to hear from you, to hear the changes you're seeing in your body as you do this microplastic detox.

And remember, if you want the full protocol, you can download the microplastic detox PDF there as well. Also, I wanna encourage you, if you wanna have a full program on how to fully detoxify, not just microplastics, but everything out of your body, you can pick up my new book. It's gonna release here in just a few months.

It's called Heal Your Cells, and I co-wrote this book with Dr. Will Cole, and you can find a link to that in the show notes as well. Again, the book is called Heal Your Cells. It really goes through how to heal anything, reverse the irreversible. You can go to amazon.com as well and just search Heal Your Cells, Dr. Axe.

It's the best book I've ever written, and it really walks you through how to promote longevity, reverse and heal anything you can imagine. I want to say thanks so much for watching the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Thanks for listening here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. And I just want to say also, thank you for subscribing here to the podcast.

You know, I feel like many of you are family and we're on a mission together. And I know, listen, I know I'm not the only one educating. I know a lot of you are sharing this information. You're learning, you're growing by watching and subscribing. So I want to say thanks for subscribing. If you're not subscribed, by the way, make sure to do that. That way you don't miss a single thing.

I've got some great guests coming up. I'm going to be doing a lot more deep dives. Into detoxification and healing and cellular medicine. So don't forget to subscribe. And also, thank you for sharing this and being on mission with me. I can't wait to see you on the next episode of the Dr. Axe Show.