We're Just Getting Started Understanding The Effects Of Micro Plastics With David Roberts

As awareness grows around the hidden toxins we encounter daily, one issue is quietly gaining urgency: microplastics in our bodies, homes, and food systems. While headlines are beginning to catch up, many people in the wellness space are asking a more immediate question—what can I actually do about it right now?That’s where David Roberts, founder of Mara Labs, offers a grounded and empowering perspective.David approaches microplastic exposure not from a place of fear—but from informed, practical wellness. With a background in public health and a deeply personal journey into cellular health after his late wife’s cancer diagnosis, he brings both science and lived experience to the conversation.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-view-from-the-writing-instrument--1023245/support.

Speaker 1: Aro dot net A r r o e dot net.

Give it a shot because it's about exploring. It's not

the same hum drum style of podcasting because we all

just kind of burn out by doing exactly that. If

you want something more than just interviews, this is the

place to be. Arrow dot net A r r oe

dot net. And while you're there, check out something our

parents would say. We've all said it, even your parents

and your grandparents and those before it. In fact, I

did research today on a subject that dates all the

way back to fifteen twelve. Something our parents would say.

Only on aro dot net A r r o e

dot net. Enjoy your exploration.

Speaker 2: It's David.

Speaker 1: Hey, David, how are you doing.

Speaker 2: I'm well, how are you today?

Speaker 1: Well, don't you hate it when the phone it says

somebody called you and you're going I didn't even I'm

sitting right here with my phone and it didn't even

ring once.

Speaker 2: It happens, No worries.

Speaker 1: Well, even as an author, it happens. I mean we

all sit here thinking, well, I should have could have

would have done that book. But it's like I felt it,

but I didn't answer the call.

Speaker 2: Yeah, Indeed, this.

Speaker 1: Project that you're on right now. I gotta tell you

it has become the topic, and it's it's like there's

something in you that said, if I don't get the

word out here about this, we're going to be living

in a time that we're not going to be able

to come back to help heel from.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a big deal for sure.

Speaker 1: What led you to it? Because I mean we're talking

about toxins here, and people have talked about it kind

of underneath their breath, but we got to get it

into a full conversation.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, honestly, what happened was a gentleman, a

researcher out of North Dakota, took one of our supplement,

which is from broccoli, it's called soul for fane, and

he did his own a research project on it without

us knowing it, and he showed for the first time

that basically this sulffeane mobilizes microplastics for excretion, and so

that was huge for us. And then we started researching

it ourselves and then it's like it's like an onion,

it just goes deeper and deeper, and it's, uh, you

peel it and there's more and see, I think you

know one some researchers out of Australia estimate we ingest

the credit card size of microplastics every week, which to

me seems a little high. But even if it's ten

percent of that, it's still a massive amount of microplastics

that we're ingesting. And that's that's a big issue because

the microplastics themselves are poor and can each one can

hold the thousands of toxins that then you know it

get excreted in your body, and so that's that can

lead to some big issues.

Speaker 1: Would you say that this is an invisible monster because

we aren't talking about it, and when it does get

unveiled and we really have a full picture of it,

will we be able to eat it?

Speaker 2: Well, that's I mean.

Speaker 3: RFK in the beginning of April set aside one hundred

and fifty million in grants to understand the problem better.

So he basically the grants are for measuring my microplastics

in our body and then also looking at the pathways

that they disrupt. So one of the known pathways that

microplastics disrupt is is the intecrin system. Because one of

the plasticizers BPA, is a known inderuptor at mimics estrogen,

which can lead to issues in women with irregular menstruation,

girls going into puberty earlier, men having low testosterone and

low sperm count. There's a documentary in Netflix in March

that should microplastics causing infertility and so that those are

part of the reasons why.

Speaker 1: I mean, it amazes me even doctor Oz has jumped

onto this, and it's like, Okay, so I lived in

the seventies, eighties, and nineties, why is this so new

to us today?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think.

Speaker 3: That's a great question because they've been around since the fifties.

But I think there's you know, it's the estimates are

a one leader of seawater has eight thousand microplastics in it,

and so I think it's been accumulating. But then even

like they've been, they found microplastics in the deepest parts

of the ocean to the highest peaks of a Mount Everest,

and so you know, it's at this point, you know,

because they're airborne, they're they're everywhere, and so they can

get in our water and you know, in our indoor air. Actually,

the estimate is up to sixty percent of our exposure microplastics.

What we we get in our bodies comes from indoor air.

And so I always say there's one thing you can

want to do. It's put a Hepa filter in the

room that you sleep in.

Speaker 1: That yeah, yeah, yeah, I have that. I have that,

I absolutely do. But then I fear going outside because

I know it's knocking on my door and it says

come out and play. It's in the forest. Yeah, but

I'm going, hey, there's plastics in the ground. What are

you talking about?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, but by far, the.

Speaker 3: Outdoor you know, in most places, not everywhere, it's cleaner

than the indoor air. And so that's because that's because

if you think about it, a lot of you know,

if you wear synthetic clothing, a lot of your clothing,

if you have a carpet, if you have a couch

that has foam, all of those are putting microplastics in

the air. And so that Hepa filter can take those

out of the air, but you're just if not, you're

breathing them in. And so outdoors, you know, like again

not everywhere, but but you know, in the countryside or

in small cities towns, the air is definitely cleaner for sure.

Speaker 1: Don't you think that one of the biggest blocks or

obstacles that we're facing is perspective versus assumption.

Speaker 2: Unpacked up for me, what do you mean by that?

Speaker 1: In other words, you know, we we we all get

this perspective of what we think microplastics are because it's

all over social media and everybody's got their clickbait and

everybody's trying to sell something, and we all assume that

we know what's going on. We we have the information.

That's the perspective, but the assumption is our actions because

we're assuming we think we've got this under control. It's

going to require more than that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it is.

Speaker 3: I think you're right because you know it is silent

and you don't you don't have you don't notice it

until you have a problem.

Speaker 2: So, like with one of my.

Speaker 3: Family friends, their daughter had a regularmnstruation and I'm like,

have you, you know, basically thought about coming off of

microplastics or decreasing your burden microplastics. But it's typically not

until you have a problem that you start thinking in

those ways. And it's because once microplastics gets inside of you,

they get into your cells and they get engulfed in

things called lysosomes, which are the digestive centers of the cell,

but that your body can't digest microplastics, and so they

build up much like food backs up into a kitchen

sink and stops it up. And so that stop up

and it typically shows that there's a problem because those

pooress microplastics starts leaching out the toxins more and more

and more until you get sick. And so that's where

this broccoly our form of self porfane and having it

basically what it does is it disolves those lysosomes, lets

them release the microplastics, so your body can start getting

rid of them. And that's huge for health reasons.

Speaker 2: You know. So you know it's a big problem.

Speaker 3: You need to basically decrease your exposure. I will also

say like don't heat your food and plastic containers. In fact,

if you have class containers, throw them out, put them

in glass, even put them in and metal in your

oven and not your microwave. And so it's just there

are other options besides plastic.

Speaker 2: And you get a.

Speaker 3: Million to one hundred million particles of microplastics per serving,

and so it just it just adds up big time.

Speaker 1: Please don't move there's more with David Roberts coming down next.

We're talking micro plastics. Ooh, it's the evil invisible monster.

Let's see if we can get you to see it.

With David Roberts. Well, I got to tell you how

my wife and I my god. Only it's just in

the past two months since I found out more about you, David. Now,

I don't know what it is about you that I

trust more than CBS or even even in people that

are in presidential offices. The thing is is that you're

speaking our street in the wave like you just said,

the plastic inside the containers, and another one where we

woke up. My wife and I went in to get sushi.

She literally said, this is coming from the ocean. There's

plastic in the ocean. She says, I really don't want

to eat here anymore. But that's the kind of conversations

that that you're starting, David, is that you're waking us up.

What is it about you that we trust?

Speaker 2: I mean, I'm I'm just a normal guy like you.

Speaker 3: I do have a background in public health, and I

mean I've been thinking about this, not necessarily microplastics, but

but toxins in our environment for a long time, right,

after I get out of grad school. There's an article

out of France showing women having flame retardant and their

breast milk, these nursing models, and basically that it came

from them sitting on couches, sitting on furniture that was

sprayed with this flame retardant and they leached in the skin,

gotten in the breast milk, and at that point nobody

knew what it was doing. But that's as a neurotoxin.

And and so you know, these the things in our environment,

you know, they're not neutral. They they definitely can impact us.

And so having eyes to see, okay, these cleaning supplies,

you know, when I clean the bathroom, my my, it's

you know, my nose is burning. Yes, yeah, no, you

know things like that where you know, I try to

get as like I said, i'd open my windows as

much as I can and get as much fresh air

in the house as possible. You know, I have a

reverse osmosis filter for my drinking water. That's a really

inexpensive way to because I live in a city, I'm

on munis of water.

Speaker 2: If you're on a well, you're fine.

Speaker 1: So I live in this forest and a lot of

the people that live in this forest with me have

above ground gardens. Are they still toxic gardens? If they

brought in their own soil it's above the ground, it's

fenced in. The deer aren't getting inside, nor are the squirrels.

Is it still a tox in place?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so, by and large.

Speaker 3: You know, if you compare our the municipal water to

let's say Africa, you know, our waters, it's it's it's

not perfect, but it's it's not going to give you

diseases at least at least short term, so you know,

but yeah, there are trace amounts of microplastics, trace amounts

of toxins. You know, if you're if you're in like

a big city, if you're in like you know, Beijing

or a lot of these Asian cities where you walk

outside and there's smog and you get you're just not

as well in fifteen minutes, those may maybe no. But

like if you're in a forest like you said, or

I'm in a city, a small city, I have a

backyard garden and it's it's fine.

Speaker 2: Yeah, you just can basically pick pick your battles.

Speaker 1: So then let me ask you kind of a weird

way the hell out there kind of question. We are

currently surviving our first well surviving is a tough word

here now since we're still just getting started. But it's

the worst dry and droughts that we've had in over

one hundred years. Do these microplastics have anything to do

with this in the atmosphere?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean not that I know of. I've not

heard of that.

Speaker 3: I think, you know, I think throughout history there have

been seasons of dry, seasons of wet, seasons of cold,

like I'm in charltstvill Virginia and Thomas Jefferson used to

go to the local lake and saw out huge chunks

of ice and the ice. There hasn't been ice on

a lake here in years, and so not since I've

been here thirty years, and I've not seen it, and

so you know, it's just different, you know.

Speaker 2: It's not yea, But not that I know of that.

Speaker 3: I don't think microplastics is necessarily causing that. It's a

complex situation.

Speaker 1: Wow, Where can people go to find out more about you?

Because fifteen twenty minutes with you is not enough time,

and people really need to do what my wife and

I did. You gotta do the studies you've got to

be able to get into what you're saying it and

then activated and see how it's going to change your

life because you'll start feeling positive.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean so, we basically are at Our website

is Mara m a r a dash Labs dot com

and you can go to forward slash Plastic to learn

more and we also have an offer there up to

twenty eight percent off. We have a Microplastics de Talks

bundle and then and then if you if you buy that,

you get a free seven day Microplastics Detox Protocol which

is all you know which basically has a ton of

information in there. We also have a blog that we're

writing about this quite a bit. You can sign up

for just got navigate to the website.

Speaker 2: We're also on social media.

Speaker 3: It's the Mara m a r a Labs on Instagram, YouTube,

and Facebook and you can connect.

Speaker 2: With us there as well.

Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad that you're talking about this, and the

reason why, and I'm probably not the only one that's

ever openly admitted to you, is that you talk about

inflammation and different things that are happening to the body. Well,

I'm the dude that's going to sit here and pop

pills left and right until the doctor says you're livers

screwed up, dude. And now it's like, okay, so now

here comes David. He's talking about my microplastics and he's

talking about inflammation. Holy crap, David, maybe that's my answer.

I need to start cutting the plastic out of my life.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's too prong.

Speaker 3: Start decreasing plastics in your life. But also this broccoly

that I'm talking about decreases in se pro inflammatory markers

thirty twenty four hours. So you take a couple of pills,

wake up, and you can feel the difference. See.

Speaker 1: That's that's why people have got to get in touch

with you. Dude. You got to come back to this

show anytime. I mean, the door is always going to

be open. This is not just a May twenty twenty

six subject. This is an everyday subject, and we've got

to work together as a community.

Speaker 3: As you say, I would love to thank you so

much for having me on.

Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?

Speaker 2: Okay, all right, take care