A new study has suggested that long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with an increased weight of women, especially women in their late forties and fifties, according to the New York Post, citing EurekAlert.
Researcher Shen Wang, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, says the women who were observed, who were exposed to poor air quality, specifically higher levels of fine particulate matter, such as nitrogen dioxide and ozone, experienced an increase in their body size.
Wang added that exposure to air pollution leads to higher body fat percentage and lower fat-free mass for middle-aged women, noting that “body fat increased by 4.5%, or about 1.20 kg.”
Data were collected from groups of 1,654 white, brown, Chinese and Japanese women, with an average age of 50, who were tracked for eight years from 2000 to 2008.
Participants’ home addresses were used to measure the relative air pollution around their homes, looking for links between environmental pollution and obesity.
The results of the study indicated that exercise and physical activity act as a deterrent to the effects of air pollution. But because the study focused only on middle-aged women, Wang said, these findings cannot be generalized to younger or older women or men.