Polluted Air May Adversely Affect Brain Size; City Dwellers at Risk for Damaged Cerebral Structure?

Studies have confirmed that air pollution can have some adverse effects on the human brain and its normal functions. Apart from causing people to forget easily which can later develop into dementia it would turn out that polluted air can also cause the brain to become smaller.

Boston University School of Medicine and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have both strongly claimed that polluted air can affect normal cognitive function in middle-aged city dwellers and senior citizens, as reported by National Monitor.

The researchers managed to obtain such scientific data through an experiment, involving 943 test subjects. Although they were all over 60-years-old, those who have been diagnosed with dementia or have a history of stroke were excluded from the experiment.

The patients were all asked to undergo a Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI. Afterwards, the scientists analyzed how much exposure to polluted air was obtained, placing the data side by side with the direct effects that air pollution can have on the human brain.

As a result of the tests, researchers found out that polluted air caused the test subjects’ brains to decrease in size, especially the ones who had a tendency to get exposed to it more often. For every increase of 2 micrograms of microscopic polluted matter per cubic meter was equivalent to a 0.32% reduction in brain size.

It was also identified that polluted air brought an increase in the risks of silent strokes among city dwellers, as compared to citizens who lived in less polluted areas. Silent strokes are very brief and highly unnoticeable as they are asymptomatic. They can only be identified with the use of brain scans.

“Long-term exposure to air pollution showed harmful effects on the brain in this study,” said Elissa H. Wilker, SC.D., study lead author and researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “Even at low levels – particularly with older people – and even those who are relatively healthy.”

The type of air pollution that the patients were exposed to was actually pretty common, according to Uncover California. Fine particle pollution is emitted by car exhaust, among other sources of smoke that are usually found within the city proper. According to the World Health Organization, or WHO, today, more people have become increasingly affected by fine particle pollution, as compared to any other presently existing pollutants.