A stance against ingested microplastics

Plastic is woven into the fabric of our modern life. We depend on it. Much of what we eat, drink, and use every day is packaged in plastic, made with plastic, or at very least has come in contact with plastic when it’s being made and transported ^[1-2]. And even if we reduce plastic wherever possible, the reality is that we cannot yet eliminate it entirely. Not while lifesaving IV bags, medical implants, sterile packaging, and essential infrastructure all rely on plastic components.

Because it can be used in so many ways, we make tons of it. Literally. About 368M tons were produced in 2019 alone, so much that if we packed all that plastic into train cars, they would stretch around the world more than five times over. And we aren’t even slowing down, instead the amount we produce is projected to skyrocket by 2050 ^[3].

Where does all that plastic go? Absolutely everywhere. When scientists go looking, we find plastics even in the most remote stretches of the planet ^[4]. With no natural processes to handle all this waste, almost all the plastic polymers we’ve ever produced are still with us. Our products get physically broken down, fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces that persist and move through the environment ^[5]. This is where the terms microplastics and nanoplastics come into play ^[6].

Microplastics are particles smaller than a millimeter. A good reference is the width of a human hair or smaller. With ten average human hairs fitting into just one millimeter.

Nanoplastics are 1000 times smaller than microplastics. At that scale, they are smaller than individual human cells, smaller than bacteria, at a size that lets them pass through the barriers our bodies use to keep out invaders.

And these particles are showing up in our most ordinary foods and water sources. We are not talking about obscure or unusual items. They have been found in drinking water, seafood, crops, and livestock. The everyday staples of life. Most of us are ingesting tiny plastic particles every single day.

For years, we assumed these particles were largely inert, simply passing through the digestive system without causing harm. But emerging evidence challenges that idea, especially for the smallest particles. These particles can cross the gut barrier, the thin layer that separates the digestive tract from the rest of the body ^[7-12].

That raises a straightforward and important question:

Is there a way to intercept some of these ingested plastic particles before they cross the gut barrier? Because once they get inside of us, we don’t yet have any tools to get them out.

Surprisingly, a promising candidate comes from something very familiar: probiotics.

Most people think of probiotics as “gut-healthy” bacteria that support digestion, regularity, and microbial balance. And that’s true. A good probiotic should deliver noticeable benefits for gut comfort and digestive function.

Scientists have known for a long time that certain probiotics are incredibly good at binding to other things like heavy metals and fungal toxins. And, interestingly enough, recent work shows some can physically bind to plastic particles, almost like a biological glue.

The exterior of a probiotic bacterial cell is covered in fat and sugar molecules that can latch onto micro- and nanoplastics.

From there, the idea becomes simple:

If bacteria can stick to plastics, then the combined clump is more likely to exit the body through normal digestion, rather than crossing our gut barrier.

This mechanism has not yet been demonstrated in humans. But it's been shown in the lab and in mouse models ^[14-16]. And that data is remarkably encouraging.

What the preclinical research shows

Early attempts to identify these “plastic binding” bacteria used a simple but clever approach. Researchers took tiny polystyrene particles, the same type of plastic found in styrofoam, and tagged them with dyes so they would glow under a microscope. They mixed those glowing plastics with different probiotic bacteria and followed the glowing plastic to see which bacteria were able to stick.

In a test tube, scientists followed which bacteria were able to stick to and remove the most glowing plastic from their samples. This led them to identify a probiotic strain they named DT88, that stuck to more plastic than the rest.

They next asked whether this would work inside of a living system. To test that, researchers gave mice DT88 for a week, and exposed them to a controlled dose of glowing microplastics. The results were straightforward: without probiotics, only about 40% plastic particles naturally passed through the mice and were excreted. When DT88 was added to the diet, almost 1.5-times more plastics were expelled from the gut. That’s a lot less plastic left inside their bodies.

A useful way to picture this is to think of the probiotics as sticky spheres moving through the gut. As they travel, they latch onto plastic particles and pull them into clusters. Those plastics, now stuck to the spheres, are more likely to stay in the digestive tract, rather than interacting with the gut wall or crossing the gut barrier. Then, the rest is naturally taken care of by the body. The clusters are eliminated through normal digestion and excretion.

The researchers didn’t stop there. Microplastics are known to stimulate the immune system, a sign they are recognized as unwanted invaders, leading to inflammation. Researchers studied key signals and immune pathways to see how the mice were responding to the plastics.

What they found echoed their data for how much plastic was sticking around in the gut:

• Mice exposures to microplastics showed increases in classic inflammatory markers (IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-1β),
• and, they showed a drop in an important anti-inflammatory marker (IL-10).

But when the mice were fed DT88, their inflammatory markers started to look more like they did before they were fed plastics, both in the gut and the bloodstream.

Together this pattern signals a shift towards a calmer, more regulated immune environment. In the gut, this often corresponds to better barrier integrity, less permeability, reduced oxidative stress, and protection against chronic, low-grade inflammation.

And this pattern has not appeared in just one study. It is showing up again and again across multiple cell models and mouse models. A consistent signal is emerging:

• Certain probiotic strains bind microplastics and nanoplastics extremely well. Not all probiotics do this; it is highly strain-specific. But the high performers show strong physical adsorption with measurable amounts of plastic stuck to their surface.
• These strains help protect the gut lining. In cell models, high-binding bacteria reduced the toxicity of nanoplastics on human colon cells, improving cell survival.
• In animals, they help the body pass more plastic. Mice given specific strains eliminated more plastic, retained less in their intestines, accumulated less in their livers, and showed lower inflammation and oxidative stress.

Does it even matter when our exposure levels are so small?

It is easy to assume that the amounts we ingest each day are too tiny to matter, especially when we can’t see it.

Sadly, with exposure happening every day, our internal levels are likely to keep rising. Microplastics can lodge in tissues and physically shear our protective gut layers as they pass through ^[17]. Nanoplastics are even smaller, interacting directly with individual cells. Both can cross the gut barrier through pathways like endocytosis, passive diffusion, and simple barrier disruption.

They weaken the gut lining and shift the proteins that hold it together ^[18].

And once they are in, they are difficult to remove.

These particles can accumulate over time, because the body has no dedicated system for clearing them. Even low daily exposure becomes meaningful when it compounds over decades.

• Plastic production increases every year
• More plastic produced each year → more fragmentation
• More fragmentation → higher concentrations of micro- and nanoplastics
• Higher concentrations → greater daily intake and accumulation over a lifetime

The trend is exponential, and not in our favor.

Until we address plastic production and waste at a global level, our bodies will continue to carry a growing share of the burden.

This is what makes early, practical interventions, like supporting the gut’s ability to intercept what we ingest, worth considering. Helping protect ourselves doesn’t solve the bigger problem, but it gives us more time to implement change and find ways to stop microplastics at their source.

And one more layer

Across human, animal, and advanced gut models, microplastics consistently shift the microbiome — the balance of bacteria that help keep the gut healthy ^[19-22].

The helpful bacteria that protect the gut lining and help us digest fiber tend to decline. This includes bacterial families like Lactobacillaceae, Bifidobacteriaceae, Akkermansiaceae, and Bacteroidaceae. These families support the mucus barrier, produce calming short chain fatty acids like butyrate, and help keep the immune system steady. When they drop, the gut becomes less resilient. The mucus layer thins, repair slows, and it becomes harder to keep harmful substances out.

At the same time, more opportunistic or inflammation-linked bacteria grow, including groups like Pseudomonadaceae and Enterobacteriaceae. These can generate more endotoxins, irritating gases, and oxidative stress, all of which put added pressure on the gut barrier and signal the immune system to stay on high alert.

The pattern is simple and consistent: fewer allies, more irritants, and a gut barrier under increasing strain.

Where Winnow fits in

Winnow was built from a simple idea:

Let’s upgrade the common probiotic. Turn a daily gut health habit into one that also has the potential to help defend against ingested plastics.

And that defense comes in three forms:

1. First, start with a truly great daily probiotic. Winnow is formulated with well studied probiotic strains selected to support digestive comfort, balance, and regularity. Every batch is third party tested for purity and screened for a wide range of contaminants, including major pesticides and heavy metals.
2. Second, support the bacterial groups most often disrupted by microplastic exposure. Emerging research suggests that microplastic exposure can reduce beneficial gut bacteria, including members of the Lactobacillaceae and Bifidobacteriaceae families. Winnow is intentionally built around these core groups to support a healthier microbial balance.
3. Third, include strains with observed plastic binding potential. Certain probiotic strains have shown the ability in laboratory and preclinical research to physically interact with microplastic and nanoplastic particles. Winnow builds on that early evidence with a multi strain consortium selected for strong binding performance across several of the plastic types most commonly discussed in the gut exposure literature, all within a formulation tested for safety and purity.

Here is the most important clarity: This plastic binding effect has not been demonstrated in humans. No responsible company should claim otherwise. The current evidence comes from laboratory and preclinical research, not human clinical proof.

But that does not make the idea irrelevant. It means the science is early.

Our view is simple: when the risk is plausible, exposure is ongoing, and the ingredients are already well suited to support gut health, the responsible path is to be transparent about what is known, honest about what is not, and keep building the evidence carefully over time.

So what are you getting today?

Not a gamble. Not a detox. Not a medical therapy.

You are getting a high quality, multi strain probiotic designed first and foremost to support gut health, with an added scientific rationale that may prove to matter even more over time.

That is exactly where Winnow fits today: a top tier probiotic now, built around an idea we believe is worth taking seriously.