A lot of studies have linked air pollution with heart and lung problems. A new study suggests your diet can worsen air pollution’s effects on you. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:
Transcript
A lot of studies have linked air pollution with heart and lung
problems. A new study suggests your diet can worsen air pollution’s
effects on you. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland
has more:
Every time you inhale, you’re breathing in tiny particles from dust, soot
and smoke. They can increase both the plaque buildup in your arteries,
and the risk of a heart attack or stroke.
Now, a study led by Dr. Lung Chi Chen at New York University’s
School of Medicine says a high fat diet combined with bad air led to a
faster buildup of plaque in the arteries of mice. He says that’s because
air pollution affects lipids – fats – in the blood. It changes their
characteristics, or oxidizes them, which leads to more plaque on artery
walls.
“If the mice are fed with high-fat, then the level of the oxidized
lipid will be higher, because they have more lipid in their blood.”
Dr. Chen says arteries of mice on a high-fat diet and breathing dirty air
were 42-percent blocked. Mice breathing clean air had arteries that were
26-percent blocked.
He hopes the study not only encourages people to eat better, but also
persuades the government to toughen air quality standards.
For the GLRC, I’m Michael Leland.