Air pollution -especially produced by vehicle – can make people of all ages more vulnerable to asthma, lung diseases, heart diseases, obesity, and diabetes.
The world health organization also says that air pollution is responsible for millions of deaths annually.
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in a new study found a correlation between traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) and anxiety in children by looking at the neurochemistry in pre-adolescents.
This study, published by the journal Environmental Research and is also available online click here to see it.
This study took place on 145 children at an average of 12 years old. The researchers evaluate the imaging at the level of myoinositol through specialized magnetic resonance spectroscopy and MRI technique.
Myoinositol is a naturally occurring metabolite mainly found in brain cells known as glial cells, which maintain the fluid balance and cell volume in the brain. Increase in myoinositol level is correlated with the increase in glial cells.
Researchers found that children who were exposed to higher levels of recent TRAP, there was a noticeable increase myoinositol in the brain cells. They also observed that the increase in myoinositol is associated with anxiety symptoms.
They found a 12% increase in anxiety symptoms in those children who were recent exposure to TRAP.
The observed increase in symptoms in developing children was relatively small and are not likely to result in clinical diagnosis.
Brunst says that “However, I think it can speak to a bigger impact on population health… that increased exposure to air pollution can trigger the brain’s inflammatory response, as evident by the increases we saw in myoinositol”
UC CINCINNATI “UC studies link between air pollution and childhood anxiety” “https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2019/05/n20836012.html”
ScienceDirect “Myo-inositol mediates the effects of traffic-related air pollution on generalized anxiety symptoms at age 12 years” “https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935119302610?via%3Dihub”