Health specialists have raised concerns about a harmful hydrocarbon detected in plastic water bottles, warning that it could be damaging our organs.

According to industry reports, North Americans consumed 16.2 billion gallons of bottled water in 2024, marking a 2 percent increase from the previous year. While many believe that choosing premium brands like Evian or Fiji Water is a healthy choice, scientists caution that it may actually be harming your health.

What Previous Research Says About Bottled Water

Earlier studies conducted by Columbia and Rutgers Universities found that a liter of bottled water contains an average of 240,000 nanoplastic and microplastic fragments.

Microplastics—tiny particles formed from the breakdown of larger plastics—are commonly found in cosmetics, cleaning products, and, notably, single-use plastic water bottles.

By analyzing five samples from three popular bottled water brands, researchers identified seven types of plastics in the water, including:

• Polyamide (a type of nylon)
• Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) (a polyester commonly used in plastic bottles)
• Polystyrene

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggested that most of these microplastics originate from the plastic packaging itself.

The Impact on Our Organs

Once consumed, these microscopic plastic shards can travel to vital organs such as the liver, kidneys, and brain. Alarmingly, they can also cross the placental boundary of a pregnant individual, potentially affecting an unborn child, according to CNN.

Following this initial investigation, a new study published in Communications Biology has pinpointed the kidneys as the organ most affected by microplastic consumption.

This research, titled “Activation of gut metabolite ACSL4/LPCAT3 by microplastics in drinking water mediates ferroptosis via gut–kidney axis,” discovered that microplastics serve as primary carriers of Benzo(a)pyrene (BaP).