(Image source from: Beware of Air Pollution - it may damage your Brain!})

We all know that the air pollution would cause severe lung diseases and sometimes even gastric anomalies would arise, but according to a study report published in the journal ‘Stroke’ the long-term exposure would cause damage to brain structures and impair cognitive function in middle-aged and older adults.

The scientists from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre and Boston University School of Medicine have studied over participants of the Framingham Heart Study, and found that the long term exposure to air pollution resulted in smaller brain structure and of covert brain infarcts ( a kind of silent ischemic strokes), caused by the blocakage of blood vessels in the brain.

Elissa Wilker, ScD, a researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre described the study was one of the first analysis of relationship between ambient air pollution and brain structure. Their findings have revealed the association of air pollution and insidious effects on structural brain aging.
So, having the dwellings away from industrial areas and minimizing the exposure to hazardous pollutions can save lives and help the middle-aged and old-aged people to avoid ischemic infarcts, impairment in brain structures.

Brian damage would also occur because of various other reasons, this particular study might have focused on the relationship between air pollution and brain structures.

-Kannamsai