Actor Orlando Bloom has openly shared a specialised 'blood treatment' that he recently got done at a London clinic.
The Lord of the Rings actor shared that he was having a procedure done to remove microplastics from his body, a practice that may become more commonplace among celebrities.
Taking to Instagram to share a snap on his story on Monday (9 June), the Brit wrote: "Thanks for the help @clarifyclinics - a new way of removing microplastics and toxic chemicals from our bodies."
Bloom could be seen looked very relaxed and slumped back in a reclined chair at the clinic in the snap.
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However, the viral photo has raised a lot of questions from numerous fans and health experts alike about what it really is, and if it actually works.
First off, why are there microplastics in our bodies?
It's not because we're eating plastics in our sleep, or anything like that - the simple answer is fish and breathing.
According to National Geographic, microplastics started to appear in the guts of sealife such as fish and shellfish.
By 2017, scientists in Belgium found that seafood lovers could ingest up to 11,000 plastic particles every year by eating mussels, a local delicacy.
However, these fragments become so small that they become airborne and are even thinner than a strand of human hair.
A team over at the University of Plymouth concluded that people will take in more plastic by inhaling or ingesting plastic fibres in the air near them, than they would from eating seafood.
This can come from clothes or carpets, or upholstery - so when Dutch scientists discovered plastic particles in the lungs and blood of humans, it wasn't surprising.
What procedure did Orlando Bloom undergo?
Bloom spent two hours undergoing the procedure at Clarify Clinic in the British capital, which set him back an eye-watering £9,750.
But what does it actually involve?
The official clinic website states that the 'Clari procedure' helps to remove toxins from your plasma.
It reads that apheresis is a process which separates your plasma into red and white blood cells.
When the plasma is passed through its safe and effective CE marked Clari column, damaging substances are taken out.
'Microplastics, forever chemicals, and inflammatory proteins are captured and removed', the clinic explains.
"Unlike Therapeutic Plasma Exchange (TPE) nothing is added to your plasma during this process," it highlights, as TPE replaces blood plasma to treat certain diseases.
The clinic claims that the pricey procedure removes 90 to 99 percent of microplastics from the blood.
Speaking about microplastics making its way into the bloodstream at all, Dick Vethaak, a professor emeritus of ecotoxicology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, highlighted its dangers.
Vethaak was responsible for leading the 2022 study in which scientists in the Netherlands discovered that microplastics are more harmful when they're airborne in comparison to being eaten in seafood.
People have taken to social media to share what they think of the procedure, with one particularly disgruntled user writing: "The microplastics will be back in the next whatever he consumes."
Another asked: "Shouldn’t this be for every human being living today bcos everyone has toxins & plastics in them?"
Topics: Orlando Bloom, Celebrity, Health, Social Media
Joshua Nair