🍽️ This simple food allows our bodies to purge nanoplastics

What if kimchi, the famous Korean fermented cabbage, could help us get rid of nanoplastics? That's what a discovery made in South Korea suggests: a bacterium from this traditional condiment shows an ability to capture these particles in the intestine, offering a new approach to limit their accumulation in the body.

These particles, resulting from the fragmentation of plastic materials, measure less than a micrometer. Their extreme smallness allows them to slip into the food and water we consume. After ingestion, they can cross the intestinal wall and accumulate in different organs, like the brain or kidneys, where their long-term effects still require more research.


Within the World Institute of Kimchi, researchers focused on a lactic acid bacterium present in this preparation, Leuconostoc mesenteroides CBA3656. Known for its beneficial effects on the microbiota, this strain reveals a new ability: it strongly adheres to polystyrene nanoplastics, creating aggregates that could be expelled more easily.

During laboratory tests, this microorganism bound 87% of the nanoplastics present. Even under conditions mimicking the human intestine, its effectiveness remains notable, reaching 57%, a rate much higher than that of other evaluated bacteria. Its robustness in the face of acidity and the changing environments of the digestive system represents a decisive advantage for future use.


This action was validated on mice lacking a microbiota. The rodents that received the CBA3656 bacterium eliminated more than twice as many nanoplastics through their feces than the control group. This increase in excretion indicates that the probiotic acts as a transporter, trapping particles in the digestive tract to promote their natural elimination.

These observations suggest that microorganisms from fermented foods like kimchi could constitute a complementary method to reduce the amount of plastic in the body.