The microplastics that pollute the environment and increasingly find their way into humans and animals can help bacteria become drug resistant, according to new research.

E. coli bacteria exposed to microplastics in test tubes became resistant to multiple types of commonly used antibiotics, Boston University researchers said in a report published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology on Tuesday.

The minuscule bits of plastics provide a surface that the bacteria attach to and colonize, study leader Neila Gross explained in a statement. Once attached to any surface, they create a biofilm - a sticky substance that acts like a shield - protecting the bacteria from invaders and keeping them affixed securely.

“We found that the biofilms on microplastics, compared to other surfaces like glass, are much stronger and thicker,” preventing antibiotics from penetrating the shield, Gross said.

Even when the microplastics were removed from the test tubes, the bacteria retained the ability to form stronger biofilms, the researchers also found.

“The presence of plastics is doing a whole lot more than just providing a surface for the bacteria to stick - they are actually leading to the development of resistant organisms,” coauthor Muhammad Zaman said in a statement.

The findings are especially concerning for people in high-density, impoverished areas like refugee settlements, where discarded plastic piles up and bacterial infections spread easily, the researchers said.

They said such environments should be monitored for microplastic-related antibiotic-resistant bacteria and viruses.

LESS DIETARY BUTTER LEADS TO FEWER DEATHS

Adults who consume plant-based oils instead of butter have lower rates of death from cancer, heart disease, or any other reason, according to data from a large study.

Tracking more than 221,000 health professionals for up to 33 years, all of whom were healthy at the start of the study, researchers found that participants with the highest butter intake had a 15% higher risk of dying from any cause during the study, compared to participants with lowest intake.

In contrast, those with the highest intake of total plant-based oils had a 16% lower risk of dying from any cause during the study, researchers reported at the American Heart Association EPI/Lifestyle Scientific Sessions in New Orleans.

“We are not suggesting that people eliminate butter entirely,” study leader Dr. Yu Zhang from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston said in an email. “Instead, reducing butter intake even modestly, and replacing it with plant-based oils can provide significant long-term health benefits.”

Every 10-gram-per-day decrease in dietary butter and increase in plant-based oils was associated with significant decreases in risks of death from any cause or from cancer or heart disease. The data was also published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study was not a randomized trial and cannot prove whether deaths were due to dietary choices. Still, an accompanying editorial notes that even among participants with poor diet quality, plant-based oils were associated with lower mortality and butter with higher mortality.

“This suggests that replacing butter with plant-based oils may offer meaningful health benefits even within less optimal dietary patterns,” the editorial said.

WILDFIRE SMOKE WORSENS SKIN PROBLEMS

Short-term exposure to wildfire air pollution is associated with increased acne clinic visits by pediatric patients and increased prescriptions of acne medications, San Francisco doctors reported at the American Academy of Dermatology annual meeting in Orlando.

Tracking California residents before and after the 2018 Camp Fire, they found that doctor visits by children for acne vulgaris and acne rosacea began to increase at five weeks after the start of the fire.

The number of acne clinic visits also rose among adults, beginning three weeks after the start of the fire, but the increase did not reach statistical significance in that group.

The same research team had previously found that short-term exposure to wildfire-associated air pollution was associated with increases in clinic visits for atopic dermatitis and for psoriasis vulgaris.

The current study, showing a similar impact on acne, supports their hypothesis that most, if not all, inflammatory skin diseases are likely to be affected by wildfire smoke, they concluded.