Air Pollution Causes Memory Loss, Makes Brain Older By 10 Years Claims New Study
Researchers at the University of Warwick in Coventry England have discovered that human memory deteriorates in places with high levels of nitrogen dioxide and air particulates. The most polluted air in England is found in Kensington and Islington whereas the cleanest is on the west coastline in places like West Somerset and Devon. When it comes to remembering a string of words a 50-year-old in polluted Chelsea performs like a 60 year old in Plymo...Read More
Researchers have found a link between memory loss and high levels of pollutants in the air. It's not good news, in case you were wondering.
Reuters
Researchers at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England have discovered that human memory deteriorates in places with high levels of nitrogen dioxide and air particulates.
Researchers compared the memory of people from densely polluted areas and people from areas with clean air. They put 34,000 English citizens through a memory test where they asked them to remember 10 words in a simple word-recall test. The people for this research were picked randomly
They took into consideration influences such as the subject's age, education, employment status, family, and ethnicity.
Their research revealed that memory loss is on people from polluted areas is similar to someone ten years older to them living in an unpolluted area. The most polluted air in England is found in Kensington and Islington, whereas the cleanest is on the west coastline in places like West Somerset and Devon.
The findings of this study will be published in the journal Ecological Economics.
Professor Andrew Oswald, one of the lead researchers said in a statement, "When it comes to remembering a string of words, a 50-year-old in polluted Chelsea performs like a 60 year old in Plymouth. We are still not exactly sure how nitrogen dioxide and air particulates act to do this."
Professor Powdthavee, another researcher on this project states, "There is a little prior evidence of a negative association between levels of traffic pollution and memory using data on elderly individuals and in children."
Reuters
He further added, "But almost all research in human studies on this topic has been based on elementary correlations and not on nationally representative samples of individuals in a country. We have tried to solve these two problems in our study."
With Diwali around the corner, Delhi is already engulfed with spiking pollution levels affecting health of various citizens. And this research just makes the whole situation a lot worse. Are bursting crackers during Diwali more important than the lives of you and your loved ones? Will we ever learn to do things for the greater good?
