Exposure to air pollution may hasten brain aging, a new study has found.
Researchers studied 1,403 women without dementia who were initially enrolled in a large health study from 1996 to 1998. They measured their brain volume with M.R.I. scans in 2005 and 2006, when the women were 71 to 89 years old.
Using residential histories and air pollution data, they estimated their exposure to air pollution from 1999 to 2006. They used data recorded at monitoring sites on exposure to PM 2.5 — tiny particulate matter that easily penetrates the lungs.
Each increase of 3.49 micrograms per cubic centimeter cumulative exposure to pollutants was associated with a 6.23 cubic centimeter decrease in white matter, the equivalent of one to two years of brain aging.
The association remained after adjusting for many variables, including age, smoking, physical activity, blood pressure, body mass index, education and income.
[For more of this story, written by Nicholas Bakalar, go to http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/...n-may-age-the-brain/]
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