Toxic Particles from Hip Implants Explained

Your hip replacement could be slowly poisoning you and you'd never know it.

Every time you walk, billions of microscopic plastic particles break off from the implant inside your

body. These particles are so small that your immune cells try to eat them

but can't, leading to a process called frustrated phagocytosis. Your cells literally

explode trying to destroy these particles, releasing enzymes that damage your tissue.

This is why engineers switched from metal on plastic joints to ceramic on ceramic. The wear rate dropped

from point two millimeters per year to just point zero zero three. That's a sixty times

improvement. Modern ceramic hip implants made from alumina have been working for over