Microplastics and Forever Chemicals: Why Your Body Can't Detox Them — and What It Actually Needs — Three separate problems, not one

Most of the conversation collapses &#8220;plastics&#8221; into a single category. It&#8217;s actually three distinct classes of compounds, each causing damage through different pathways: Microplastics and nanoplastics &#8212; physical particles less than 5mm (micro) or less than 1&#956;m (nano). These cause direct mechanical damage to tissues, act as surface rafts carrying other toxins across biological barriers, and nucleate pathological protein aggregation in the brain. Plasticizers &#8212; BPA, phthalates (DEHP, DBP, BBP), and related compounds that leach out of plastic. These are classical endocrine disruptors with relatively short half-lives &#8212; which sounds reassuring until you realize we&#8217;re re-exposed multiple times a day. PFAS &#8212; &#8220;forever chemicals&#8221; &#8212; perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances like PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS. These are the worst of the three. They&#8217;re not metabolized by the body at all. They have biological half-lives measured in years , not days. They bioaccumulate. And they hijack the very transport systems your body uses to eliminate waste. Any framework that treats these three as one thing will fail on at least two of them. They need different biological capacities activated in different sequences.