How to Get Microplastics Out of Your Body: What Works and What’s Hype

The honest answer on “detoxing” microplastics from your system, and what actually helps.

If you’re among the 93% surge of people who have Googled “microplastics” recently, you might be seeking a way to rid them from your body, even if you’ve taken precautions to minimize your exposure.

While more research is underway regarding the specific detrimental impacts of microplastics in your system, we know that they can be carcinogenic and negatively affect the respiratory, digestive, reproductive, hormonal, nervous, and immune systems. If you’re wondering how to get microplastics out of your body, that is a logical course of action, but you might have to wait a while.

What You Should Know About “Microplastic Detoxes”

The average person could ingest and/or inhale over 100,000 microplastic particles annually. They are in the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the food we eat. Microplastics have been found in humans via blood, lung tissue, reproductive tissue, arterial plaque, and even placentas and umbilical cords.

Microplastics that have permeated the gut can increase harmful pathobionts — native organisms that can induce disease — and decrease beneficial bacteria. Microplastics are also endocrine disruptors, can cross the blood-brain barrier as a potential neurotoxin, and are linked to immune cell impairment.

A booming number of people believe in microplastic detoxes. The corresponding supplement market was valued at $68.4 million in 2025 and is expected to reach over $2 billion in a decade. That’s a lot of money and marketing suggesting that it’s possible to remove microplastics from your body, but can any actually get that job done?

Going Deeper on What the Science Says

Point blank: there’s no validated, proven way to eliminate non-degradable microplastics from human tissue, and the detox products on the market don’t have real evidence behind them. Early lab work hints at possibilities — certain probiotics helped animals excrete microplastics, for instance — but nothing’s proven in people. There is promising research showing the possibility of removing microplastics from blood, but it’s not really the kind of detox you’re likely looking for.

The process involves withdrawing blood to separate its plasma, filter it, recombine it with the blood, and put that back in the body. That’s substantially different from over-the-counter products or cleanses companies might try to sell you.

There’s also some encouraging science on the body’s own housekeeping: in Dr. Matthew Campen’s analysis of decedent brains, microplastic levels didn’t clearly rise with a person’s age — a hint that organs like the liver and kidneys may clear some particles on their own. It’s early and observational, so it’s a promising signal, not a settled finding.

All of the microplastics-associated risks are scary, but we don’t yet know the dose-response relationship (i.e., what concentrations, particle sizes, plastic types, and exposure volume to actually be concerned about). Microplastics appear in the artery plaque of a majority of people with carotid artery disease, but their presence shows association rather than causation.

The Takeaway

Trying to extricate your body of microplastics is not a feasible plan of action. The best way to combat microplastics is to lower your microplastic intake by limiting your exposure. That includes swapping single-use plastics and plastics in your kitchen with glass, stainless steel, and ceramics, and avoiding using plastic with heat.

Bottom Line

Microplastic detoxes remain a future dream, so don’t spend your money on them. Even if they did exist, they wouldn’t know what to target since we don’t know the specifics (e.g., particle size, type of plastic, etc.) that would be necessary to remove them until we have better human studies.

Rejoice that we can detect microplastics in the body and that there is emerging science suggesting that we might naturally be able to remove microplastics. But your ability to do that at home is not quite fleshed out yet. Next time you tap the Google search bar, look up the best swaps you can make to reduce your microplastic exposure instead. That’s the most effective action you can take as of today.