Health Articles - Bad air could be destroying your brainpower

A memory that slips with age and progresses into the dreaded
nightmare of dementia is often considered just a part of growing old.
But a growing body of evidence shows lifestyle has a huge impact on
causing thinking problems in the elderly. Now, new research recently
presented in SanDiego at The Gerontological Society of America's (GSA)
65th Annual Scientific Meetingshows the air you breathe could be
damaging your brain. Living in areas of high airpollution can lead to
decreased cognitive function in older adults, according to the study
which analyzed data from the U.S. Environmental ProtectionAgency and
the Health and Retirement Study.
"As a result of age-related declines in health and functioning, older
adults are particularly vulnerable tothe hazards of exposure to
unhealthy air," researcher Jennifer Ailshire, PhD, a National
Institute on Aging postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Biodemography
and Population Health and the Andrus Gerontology Center at the
University ofSouthern California , said in a media statement."Air
pollution has been linked to increased cardiovascular and respiratory
problems, and even premature death, in older populations, and there is
emerging evidence that exposure to particulate air pollution may have
adverse effects on brain health and functioning as well."
This is the first study that demonstrates how exposure to air
pollution influences cognitive function in a national sample of older
men and women. Ailshire concluded that fine air particulate matter
(comprised of particles that are 2.5 micrometers in diameter and
smaller), when inhaled, can deposit deep in the lung and possibly the
brain and may be an importantenvironmental risk factorfor a reduced
ability to think and remember accurately.
The researcher studied data on 14,793 white, black, and Hispanic men
and women aged 50 and older who participated in the 2004 Health and
Retirement Study, a nationally representativesurvey of older adults.
Then the individual data were linked with data from the 2004 annual
average levels of fine air particulate matter collected by the
Environmental ProtectionAgency's Air Quality System monitors across
the country. Cognitive function (which consisted of tests assessing
word recall, knowledge, language, and orientation) was measured on a
scale of one to 35.
Ailshire discovered that people living in areas where there were high
levels of fine air particulate matter scoredpoorer on the cognitive
function tests. The association remained even after accounting
forseveral other risk factors -- such as age, race/ethnicity,
education, smoking, and respiratory and cardiovascular disorders.
So just how much of a brain scrambling impact could dirty air really
have? It appears that breathing polluted city air could make your
thinking processes age more quickly than they would if you breathed
clean air. The study found that fine air particulate matter exposures
in cities with air pollution ranged from4.1 to 20.7 micrograms per
cubic meter -- and every ten point increase was associated with a 0.36
point drop in cognitive function score, which is roughly equal toaging
three years.
The study is more evidence that what we do to our bodies can make a
big difference onhow well we think and whether or not we avoid
dementia. As Natural News previously reported, for example, scientist
William B. Grant,PhD, of the Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research
Center (SUNARC) believes a lack of vitaminD could be the cause of
mind-robbing Alzheimer's disease and other vascular dementia. What's
more, researchersat Massachusetts Instituteof Technology (MIT) have
discovered that a combination of naturally occurring nutrients can do
what Big Pharma drugs can't -- potentially improve memory in people
diagnosed with dementia.