Toxic Air Pollution Particles Can Get Into Fetus Brains, Lungs, Livers, Says New Study

Healthcare Toxic Air Pollution Particles Can Get Into Fetus Brains, Lungs, Livers, Says New Study Bruce Y. Lee Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I am a writer, journalist, professor, systems modeler, computational and digital health expert, avocado-eater, and entrepreneur, not always in that order.

Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Oct 9, 2022, 03:55pm EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin A study just published in The Lancet Planetary Health showed how such toxic air pollution particles . .

. [+] can get into the blood in umbilical cords and end up in the livers, lungs, and brains of fetuses. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images) Getty Images When The Hollies sang, “The Air That I Breathe,” they didn’t mention toxic air pollution particles.

But unfortunately that’s what many pregnant mothers may breathe in these days given how much pollution there is in the air. And a new study just published in The Lancet Planetary Health showed how such particles may cross the placenta and end up in the livers, lungs, and brains of fetuses. That’s clearly not a good development for fetuses as exposure to such particles so early could potentially affect their organ development.

The study was illuminating in more ways than one. It used an illumination method to check for black carbon particles in various blood and tissue samples from mothers and fetuses. A team from Hasselt University in Hasselt, Belgium (Eva Bongaerts, MSc, Hannelore Bové, PhD, Marcel Ameloot, PhD, and Tim S Nawrot, PhD), the University of Aberdeen in Aberdeen, UK (Laetitia L Lecante, PhD, and Paul A Fowler, PhD), and KU Leuven in Leuven, Belgium (Maarten B J Roeffaers, PhD) conducted this two-part study.

The first part of the study found evidence of black carbon particles in umbilical cord blood samples from 60 randomly selected mother-neonate pairs who were part of the ENVIRONAGE (Environmental Influences on Ageing in Early Life) birth cohort of mothers from Belgium. This showed that such particles could get past the placenta and into the fetus’s circulation system. In fact, the amount of particles found strongly correlated with how much exposure to black carbon the mother had during pregnancy.

In case you’re wondering, the research team did exclude from the study those mothers who had had histories of smoking. Car exhaust contributes significantly to air pollution. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Getty Images The second part of the study entailed analyzing tissue samples from 36 fetuses of gestational age seven to 20 weeks from the SAFeR (Scottish Advanced Fetal Research) cohort of terminated pregnancies in the Aberdeen and the Grampian region of the United Kingdom.

The analysis found black carbon particles in the livers and lungs of all 36 fetuses and the brains of 14. Again, these were fetuses that were still developing in otherwise normal pregnancies. By the way, the researchers used measurements of cotinine concentrations to ensure that the mothers had been non-smokers.

MORE FOR YOU Hiring Refugees: How One Big Factory Did It Ask Larry: What Happens If I Accepted A Raise In January? Bank Earnings Season Starts Next Week: Remember To Breathe! This is clearly not good news. The Troggs and Wet, Wet, Wet may have sung “Love Is All Around. ” But what is really all around is air pollution.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) , around 99% of the global population currently breathes in air that exceeds limits in WHO guidelines and has high levels of pollutants. That means, unless you are in the one percent, chances are you breathing in pollutants nearly each and every day. A National Institute for Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) website summarizes studies that have shown how air pollution is linked to a wide range of health concerns such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and reproductive, neurological, and immune system disorders.

Other studies have shown links between mothers being exposed to air pollution particles during pregnancy and problems during pregnancy , worse birth outcomes , and molecular alterations in the newborn . Back in 1970, Debra Wolf was named Miss Smog America. Five decades later, air pollution has become .

. . [+] an even bigger problem.

(Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images) Bettmann Archive So, air pollution can affect not only your health but also potentially the health of your unborn children. If you believe that the children are our future, then this doesn’t bode very well for our future, given that our world is not doing nearly enough to reduce air pollution. Until our society “airs” on the side of reducing pollution, we could have quite a developing problem on our hands.

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