What you're actually detoxing when you sweat 😅
We've all seen the headlines about microplastics. They're in the water. They're in the food. They're in the air. They were found in human brain tissue, which is the kind of sentence that makes you want to put your phone down and go live in a cave, except the cave probably has microplastics in it too because at this point nowhere is safe and the planet is just a plastic bag wearing a costume 😅
In April, the federal government confirmed that this is exactly as concerning as it sounds by launching STOMP — Systematic Targeting Of MicroPlastics — a $144 million program to figure out how to measure and remove microplastics from the human body. The director of ARPA-H said, and this is a direct quote: "Microplastics are in every organ we look at — in ourselves and in our children." When someone in charge of a $144 million budget says "we don't know which ones are harmful or how to remove them," that's not reassuring. That's a press conference that ends with everyone googling things they wish they hadn't.
So. What can you actually do about it right now?
Sweat it out
A study out of the University of Alberta tested blood, urine, and sweat for BPA — one of the most common plastic-related chemicals — and found it in the sweat of 80% of participants. Some of those people had zero detectable BPA in their blood or urine. Their lab work would have come back totally clean. Meanwhile their sweat was like "oh no, we've got plenty of this stuff, nobody asked us" 🙃
The same team found phthalates and heavy metals preferentially showing up in sweat too — compounds linked to hormonal disruption that your kidneys and liver weren't fully catching. Sweat is apparently running its own off-the-books waste management program, and it's picking up what your other detox systems are leaving behind.
Now — important caveat, because we're not going to oversell this: no study has shown that sweating removes actual microplastic particles, the tiny physical fragments that build up in tissue. That's part of what STOMP is trying to solve. What sweating does remove is the chemical cargo that comes with plastic exposure — BPA, phthalates, heavy metals — and it does it through a pathway that regular blood and urine testing doesn't even measure. It's not a miracle fix. But it's one of the only things you can actually do today while the government spends five years and $144 million working on the bigger answer.
This is where the hot studio earns its rent
There's a difference between getting a little sweaty during a set of lunges and the kind of sustained, full-body sweat you produce during an hour of hot yoga or hot barre in a heated room. The research on sweat excretion is about volume — more sweat, more excretion — and the hot studio produces the kind of volume that a normal workout doesn't come close to.
A 2025 systematic review of 43 studies on hot yoga found it improved flexibility by up to 35%, along with balance, mobility, and depression symptoms, so you're not just sitting in a hot room marinating in your own brine — you're getting a real workout that builds flexibility and mental health benefits while also maximizing the one detox pathway that current science actually supports. But if you’re into the more passive approach, you’re already paying for the single most research-backed sweat tool available, and there's a decent chance you've been walking past it on your way out the door after every workout — which is almost funny if it weren't also the exact moment your body would benefit from it the most. (15 minutes of post-exercise sauna three times a week improvedcardiovascular fitness, blood pressure, and cholesterol beyond what exercise alone achieved.)
Choose your own adventure
This month is Plastic Free July, and if you've watched The Plastic Detox on Netflix — you already know how deeply these chemicals are embedded in daily life and how quickly health markers can shift when exposure drops.
You can reduce your intake — but eliminating exposure completely isn't realistic in a world where microplastics have been found in rain. What you can do is support the pathway your body is already using to get rid of the chemical fallout, and give it as much runway as possible. The hot studio, sauna and steam room all do that. Come sweat with purpose.
Helping you sweat (the right) small stuff,
Your West Coast Fitness Family
PS: Alyssa's Trailhead Training free info session is tomorrow, July 13th at 5:30pm. Come learn about the hiking and backpacking prep program, meet Alyssa, and see if it's for you. Sign ups are at the front desk 💪
