Air pollution and obesity are linked, IQAir reports. According to the portal, fine particles, or PM2.5, and ultrafine particles, particles measuring, less than 0.1 microns in diameter, are believed to be the pollutants most responsible for disrupting metabolic function.
‘When you breathe in, particle pollutants irritate the alveoli in your lungs that normally allow oxygen to pass into your bloodstream. Consequently, the lining of your lungs releases hormones that make insulin less effective, diverting blood from insulin-sensitive muscle tissue and stopping your body from properly regulating its blood sugar levels.
Additionally, particle pollution may cause your body to flood your blood with higher levels of inflammatory molecules called “cytokines”, which trigger immune cells to invade otherwise healthy tissue.
According to a 2014 study published in Environmental Health, this response not only interferes with your tissue’s ability to respond to insulin, but the resulting inflammation may also disrupt the hormones and brain processing that govern your appetite.
This can result in feeling hungry even when you’re totally full or satiated. The additional food you eat to feed your artificial appetite may result in weight gain over time. – The Berkeley researchers found, that air pollution exposure could lead to a 13.6% increase in body mass index (BMI), the most popular metric for a healthy weight.
A 2010 study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology tackled this question while looking into how living in big cities could put people at a higher risk of heart disease than their rural counterparts.
In the study, some mice were given clean, filtered air to breathe while others breathed the kind of dirty air you’d find near a congested freeway. The researchers periodically weighed the mice and performed tests to analyze their metabolic function.
In just 10 weeks, the mice exposed to the polluted air displayed more significant volumes of body fat, both around their midsections and around internal organs. The fat cells were approximately 20% larger in the mice exposed to polluted air.
The fatter mice also seemed to have become less sensitive to insulin — one of the first symptoms in the development of type 2 diabetes.
Several scientific studies show that humans are susceptible to the same alarming health consequences, the article reads.
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