According to a new study published in in the journal Environment International, air quality is linked to various health problems, including gut health. This is the first study to connect gut health with air quality, as most of them are focused on diet.
It appears so that the air we breathe every day has adverse effects on gut health as pollution decimates the human microbiome. According to researches at the University of Colorado, Boulder, smog has catastrophic effects on human health, and is responsible for various affections like weight gain, inflammatory bowel disease and even Type 2 diabetes.
The takeaway from the new study is that changes in the gut are also visible in heavily polluted areas. The main pollutants to affect gut health are nitrous oxide, particulate matter and increased levels of ozone. The report reviewed fecal samples of young adults living in Southern California, and it determined that ozone levels had the most significant impact on gut health, as in higher exposure to ozone leads to less variety in gut bacteria, which is a bad thing for overall health.
The study authors revealed that air pollution kills over 8.8 million people each year, more than smoking and war combined. Ozone exposure is responsible for the proliferation of 128 bacterial species; some of the bacteria impact insulin production, as this pollutant gas basically favors some bacteria over others which leads to health consequences.
According to one of the researches, this study is just the beginning, and it’s limited in nature due to a small testing pool and limited budget. Here’s senior author Tanya Alderete in university release:
“A lot of work still needs to be done, but this adds to a growing body of literature showing that human exposure to air pollution can have lasting, harmful effects on human health.”
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