Environmental geochemistry and healthJul 17, 2026

How Microplastics Affect the Gut Microbiome and Ageing: Causes and Possible Treatments

Longevity & Aging Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Jul 18, 2026

Abstract

Micro- and nanoplastic (MNPs) pollution is associated with ageing and age-related pathologies.

MNPs exposure occurs mainly through oral ingestion, inhalation, and skin absorption.
Evidence suggests MNPs may contribute to cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disorders.
The gut microbiome plays a crucial role in regulating human ageing and is influenced by MNPs.
MNPs may drive oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and cellular senescence.
Disruption of epigenetic modulation by MNPs could activate key pathways related to ageing.
Multi-pronged intervention strategies are proposed to mitigate MNPs pollution and its health risks.

Simplified

As a pervasive global environmental concern, micro- and nanoplastic (MNPs) pollution leads to widespread systemic human exposure via three main routes: oral ingestion, inhalation, and dermal absorption. Accumulating evidence demonstrates that MNPs are strongly associated with ageing and age-related pathologies, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disorders. Meanwhile, the gut microbiome, an intensely studied regulatory mediator, plays a critical role in modulating human ageing. This review systematically summarizes the routes of human exposure to MNPs and their mechanistic links to human ageing. It delineates the interplay among MNPs, the gut microbiome and human ageing, and elucidates how the MNPs-gut microbiome Axis drives oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, cellular senescence, and mitochondrial dysfunction, disrupts epigenetic modulation, and activates core ageing-related pathways such as TLR4/NF-κB, ultimately exacerbating systemic inflammation and organ dysfunction. Furthermore, this review proposes multi-pronged intervention strategies, providing a scientific basis for mitigating MNPs pollution and its associated health risks, and offering novel theoretical insights for the development of anti-ageing interventions.

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Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

PubMed

How Microplastics Affect the Gut Microbiome and Ageing: Causes and Possible Treatments

Abstract

Full Text

Funding

Competing interests

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