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Mesh used for hernia repair – link to disease
I’ve been meaning to bring this to the attention of primarily the MDs on this forum since I discovered this paper in November 2019 however have been extremely busy.
It has been discovered that nanoplastics which our water and food contain and of course the meshes used for hernia repair, cause very fast confrontational changes in our cells. This paper has demonstrated that several types of plastic cause confirmational changes in proteins.
The paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-52495-wPolypropylene which many meshes are made from hasn’t been investigated yet however it’s very likely that all plastics will cause confirmational changes in cells such as proteins (but not limited to just proteins others simply haven’t been investigated). This is an extremely big discovery in the world of Biophysics and many governments will likely pass legislation within the next two years to minimise these nanoplastics.
When a confirmational change occurs the structure of a cell is altered, structure in biology is related to function and hence the cell will no longer function as intended which leads to diseases such as cancer. I spoke with my lecturer regarding meshes specifically and he believed it’s highly lightly larger scale structures such as a mesh will also cause these structural changes. Meshes have a lot of surface area also which would maximise the amount of confirmational changes which occur. The MDs on here will know best on this one but I also believe it’s likely the mesh while it’s in the body for years will undergo small abrasions further spreading the plastic and increasing surface area and confirmational changes. It will take years of investigation to fully understand the damage a mesh might do via this mechanism while in the body for such a prolonged period of time. This paper is clear evidence that plastics in the body do cause disease and investigation into other plastics like polypropylene will soon be underway. I suspect that in the coming years mesh hernia repair surgery will only be done in cases where there is no other option and the patient’s life is at risk if it’s not done.
I hope you find this useful, I’ll try to check back in if anyone has questions.
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1 Reply
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Well as I put it once some got a nobel prize for the invention of plastics and some others hopefully will win one for the discovery or invention to rid the world of its presence….I dream of swimming at sea without seeing some plastic floating…just like when I was a child
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