Microplastics in your blood? Orlando Bloom thinks so. Here's what the science says about detox, dialysis and whether "cleaning" your blood really works.

When actor Orlando Bloom revealed in June 2025, that he'd undergone a procedure to have his blood "cleaned", many people raised eyebrows. The Pirates of the Caribbean star had turned to a treatment known as apheresis - a medical process in which blood is removed from the body, centrifuged or filtered to extract certain components, then returned in an attempt to flush out microplastics and other toxins.

Apheresis is typically used to treat conditions such as autoimmune diseases or abnormally high levels of blood cells or proteins. Its use as a detox for microplastics, however, is scientifically unproven.

Still, Bloom said he suspected his body had absorbed plastic through daily exposure, and wanted it out of his system.

He's probably right about the exposure. Scientists have found microplastics - tiny plastic fragments less than 5mm in size - in our air, water, soil, food and even inside human tissue. But when it comes to removing them from the bloodstream, that's where the science gets murky.

As researchers studying microplastic contamination, we've examined this...