Research: Long-Term Exposure To Air Pollution Can Make Women Fatter

According to a recent study, published in the journal Diabetes Care, researchers from the University of Michigan in the US found that long-term air pollution exposure was linked to more body fat, higher fat percentage and lesser lean mass in middle aged women. For example, body fat can increase by 4.5 percent, or around 2.6 pounds due to air pollution, as per the study. The new study suggests another factor that gets influenced due to air pollution, i.e the weight of middle aged women, their body mass index (BMI), waist size, and body fat.

Xin Wang, epidemiology research investigator at the university's School of Public Health, said, "Women in their late 40s and early 50s exposed long-term to air pollution" specifically, higher levels of fine particles, nitrogen dioxide and ozone a" saw increases in their body size and composition measures."

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To conduct the study, data was collected from 1,654 white, Black, Chinese, and Japanese women from the 'Study of Women's Health Across the Nation'. These women were at a baseline average age of around 50 years. They were monitored  from they year 2000 to 2008. The researchers analysed the link between air pollution and physical activity on body composition. The research showed that high levels of physical activity helped in knowing about the offset exposure to air pollution. As the research aimed on middle aged women, the study findings cannot be generalised to men or women of other age groups," Wang said.