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Air pollution associated with body size and composition in middle-aged women
Obesity has been a major global health problem in recent decades as more people eat unhealthy diets and do not exercise regularly. A new study from the University of Michigan suggests that there is another factor that determines women's weight, body mass index, waist circumference and body fat - air pollution. Women in their late 40s and early 50s who had long-term exposure to air pollution — particularly higher levels of particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ozone — saw increases in their body size and composition, said Xin Wang, an epidemiological research investigator at the UM School of Public Health and lead author...
Air pollution associated with body size and composition in middle-aged women
Obesity has been a major global health problem in recent decades as more people eat unhealthy diets and do not exercise regularly.
A new study from the University of Michigan suggests that there is another factor that determines women's weight, body mass index, waist circumference and body fat - air pollution.
Women in their late 40s and early 50s who had long-term exposure to air pollution — particularly higher levels of particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ozone — saw increases in their body size and composition, said Xin Wang, an epidemiological research investigator at the UM School of Public Health and lead author of the study.
Data came from 1,654 white, black, Chinese and Japanese women from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation. These women, whose median baseline age was nearly 50 years, were followed from 2000 to 2008.
Annual air pollutant exposures were assigned by linking residential addresses to hybrid estimates of air pollutant concentrations. The researchers examined the relationships between pollution and participants' body size and composition. One question they tried to answer was whether these associations differed depending on physical activity.
Exposure to air pollution was associated with higher body fat, fat percentage, and lower lean mass in middle-aged women. For example, body fat increased by 4.5%, or about 2.6 pounds.
The researchers examined the interaction between air pollution and physical activity on body composition. High levels of physical activity - based on the frequency, duration and perceived physical exertion of more than 60 exercises - was an effective way to reduce and balance exposure to air pollution, the study showed.
Because the study focused on women in midlife, the results cannot be generalized to men or women in other age groups, Wang said.
The results appear in Diabetes Care.
The study's co-authors are Carrie Karvonen-Gutierrez (UM), Ellen Gold (UC Davis), Carol Derby (Albert Einstein College of Medicine), Gail Greendale (UCLA), Xiangmei Wu (California Environmental Protection Agency), Joel Schwartz (Harvard), and Sung Kyun Park (UM).
Source:
Reference:
Wang, X., et al. (2022) Longitudinal associations of air pollution with body size and composition in midlife women: The Nationwide Women's Health Study. Diabetes treatment. doi.org/10.2337/dc22-0963.
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