Pollution particles reach the brain, new study finds

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Tiny pollution particles have been discovered in brain samples, a finding described as “dreadfully shocking” by researchers.
The team analysed samples of brain tissue from 37 people – 29 from Mexico City, a city notorious for its pollution. The other 8 came from Manchester, from people who suffered from some kind of neurodegenerative disease. Inside samples of their brains, scientists found traces of magnetite – magnetic nanoparticles. With the chemical formula is Fe3O4, magnetite is one of the oxides of iron.

The lead author of the research paper, Prof Barbara Maher had previously discovered similar particles in samples of air gathered beside a busy road in Lancaster and outside a power station. She suspected some of these particles might make their way to the brain, and that’s exactly what happened.

“It’s dreadfully shocking. When you study the tissue you see the particles distributed between the cells and when you do a magnetic extraction there are millions of particles, millions in a single gram of brain tissue – that’s a million opportunities to do damage.”

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Not so shocking really, our world is more polluted than most people realize. I work in the recycling field, we have fairly safe ways of making products, but the almighty dollar sends us down paths to make things cheaper with no plan to recover and recycle the product.

Recent studies on how badly our great big oceans are polluted badly, the air we breath, everything really our bodies are slowly absorbing no matter how careful you are to avoid it. I have a insensitivity to chemicals (perfumes), I go into hot flashes, skin breaks out in red rashes and I can taste it badly. These chemical are in most household products and people are breathing them in on a daily basis and yes it smells nice and may not bother you, but like platics this stuff will effect generations down the road. Peoples childrens, children can have health effects from what their gragndparents were eating and breathing.

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Ah crap, this is expected but at the same time it’s scary when said aloud