ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Air quality doesn’t only affect your lungs, but it can also impact other organs. Ivanhoe has details on a study that investigates how air quality influences brain health.
From boosting mood and improving focus and concentration to lowering the risk of dementia and increasing longevity, the benefits of exercise on the brain are bountiful.
“The longer on the treadmill, the lower your mortality is,” Wael Jaber, MD, from the Cleveland Clinic.
But what can things like traffic and pollution do to those gains? Researchers at the University of Arizona and University of Southern California looked at records of more than 8,500 people. They looked at exercise habits, brain scans and pollution levels where they live. They found those who vigorously worked out in areas with little air pollution showed relatively large amounts of healthy gray matter and low incidence of white matter lesions, compared to people who never exercised hard. White matter lesions are associated with higher risk of stroke, cognitive decline and depression. However, those beneficial associations almost disappeared when exercisers lived in areas with even moderate air pollution. For people working out in more polluted areas, researchers found they had less gray matter and more white matter lesions than those in less pollution, even if their workouts were similar. Experts say, when exercising outdoors, stay away from busy highways and check the air quality index before heading outside.
Think your indoor quality is better than outside? Think again! According to the EPA, the concentrations of some pollutants are often two to five times higher than typical outdoor concentrations. So make sure to vacuum carpets and area rugs at least once or twice a week with a vacuum cleaner equipped with a HEPA filter and change out air filters regularly.
Contributors to this news report include: Milvionne Chery, Producer; Roque Correa, Editor.
Sources:
https://n.neurology.org/content/98/4/e416, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562167/#:~:text=White%20matter%20lesions%20(WMLs)%20are,marker%20of%20small%20vessel%20disease
https://www.epa.gov/report-environment/indoor-air-quality
AIR QUALITY AFFECTS
BRAIN GAINS
REPORT #2962
BACKGROUND: Exercise helps to strengthen all the muscles in your body allowing them to work better for you. This means that your heart and brain muscles are getting stronger as well. However, air pollution is becoming increasingly prominent in our world today and it is now taking a toll on our body and our minds. Some immediate problems that air pollution can cause is respiratory illness and added stress to the heart and lungs. Some long-term effects include risk of cognitive decline and possibly depression for adults. Randy Nelson, PHD, Is a professor of neuroscience at Ohio State University. He has conducted a study for air pollution effects on mice. He exposed one mouse to elevated levels of pollution for eight hours five times a week. The mouse that had been exposed showed cognitive differences compared to the mouse who had not been exposed to the high levels of pollution. The mouse was experiencing depressive episodes and took longer to figure out the maze than the mouse that was not exposed. What is more interesting is that the mouse that had been exposed to considerable amounts of air pollution was also experiencing memory loss.
(Source: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/07-08/smog, https://www.sparetheair.com/health.cfm)
THE STUDY: Cars, trucks, generators, factories, and power plants are all manmade and emit pollutants that clog our air. More than 90 percent of the air that people breath in the world does not meet the World Health Organization, or WHO standards. Although governments around the globe have made laws that have tried to help this issue based on MRI scans and other test, brain inflammatory makers have been found in people all over the globe and especially in those who live in high pollution areas. Nicolai Kuminoff and some of his colleagues at Arizona State University conducted an experiment to see the relationship between air pollution and dementia. They took advantage of the new Environmental Protection Agency or, EPA regulations in the Mid-2000s that forced regulators to improve air quality. They looked at over seven million American between 2004 and 2013. They controlled socioeconomic factors like hypertension, education, and housing. Looking at the areas with improving air quality the study show that fewer older people developed dementia compared to the countries that did not make any recent changes. After looking at all the data it was evident that by 2013 there were 182,000 fewer people with dementia.
(Source: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2008940117)
AIR REGULATIONS: Since 1970 the Environment Protection Agency, or EPA has been working with all levels of the government to clean up the air and the damage pollution causes. The Clean Air Act has created standards that have made the air quality better and continues to improve. Medical professionals are still in the process of trying to figure out what they can do about the air pollutions effects on the human body. Some things that an individual can do to help reduce exposure is limiting outside exercise on days with inadequate air quality, using filter indoors to help clean the air and reducing the amount of air from outside that comes into your home.
(Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/, https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/air-pollution-current-and-future-challenges)
* For More Information, Contact:
Melissa Furlong, PhD
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