United States: Residing by the coastal waters of America may be contributing to the death of millions earlier than their normal age due to diabetes, heart disease, or a stroke.
According to a new study issued by the American Heart Association, microplastics, i.e., small particles of plastic that proved to be infiltrating all environments and organisms on the planet, begin having more severe health effects on people who dwell near the oceans.
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The researchers found out that the heavily microplastic polluted coastal counties were associated with 18 percent more individuals with Type 2 diabetes, seven percent more coronary artery disease patients, and nine percent more strokes, as compared to the least polluted counties.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there are over 250 counties along the mainland US, all of which are coastal, with more than 94 million people inhabiting them.
Coastal counties with very high marine microplastic levels had higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke compared to coastal counties with lower marine microplastic levels, according to a new study.https://t.co/QBEurQ3C61
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 18, 2025
In order to carry out their study, Ganatra and his associates analyzed 152 coastal counties of the United States based on the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Gulf of America (formerly the Gulf of Mexico).
They gathered information on the microplastic concentration in ocean water up to 200 Nautical miles of these counties between the years 2015 and 2020 based on information provided by the National Centers for Environmental Information.
The researchers divided the counties into four categories that range depending on the number of microplastics in the water as follows: low (almost no plastic), medium (up to one small piece of plastic in every 200 bathtubs of water), high (a handful of pieces of plastic in each tub of water), and very high (10 or more pieces of plastic in each tub of water).
According to Ganatra, “Even in health care – a field devoted to healing – we rely heavily on single-use plastics. Much of it ends up in landfills or the ocean, where it fragments into microplastics and enters the ecosystem,” Daily Mail reported.
Using the same counties, they then used health data collected between 2015 and 2020 on the rates of Type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease (plaque buildup in the arteries), and stroke by looking up the same on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
They controlled such aspects as age, gender, income, access to physicians, air pollution, and neighborhood characteristics, which ensured that the findings were not biased.