A new study has found a worrying link between high levels of air pollution and osteoporosis, a chronic condition that makes bones more likely to break.
The risk of osteoporosis increases with age, and it is particularly common in postmenopausal women.
In a study published inClinical MedicineData was collected on a diverse cohort of 9,041 postmenopausal women over a period of 6 years.
Using home addresses to estimate the amounts of nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and PM10 particulate matter, the researchers found that as pollution rose, bone mineral density decreased throughout the body, including in the neck, spine and hip.
“Our findings confirm that poor air quality may be a risk factor for bone loss, regardless of socioeconomic or demographic factors,” says biomedical scientist Didier Prada, of Columbia University in New York.
The study sheds light on the relationship between nitrogen and the backbone. A 10 percent increase in this type of pollution over three years was associated with an average annual loss of 1.22 percent in bone mineral density in the spine, double the amount caused by normal aging.
According to the researchers, this is due to the death of bone cells caused by mechanisms including oxidative stress, in which toxic molecules in the environment cause damage to the body.
Although the study was intended for postmenopausal women, it also included a wide range of ethnic groups, locations, lifestyles, and socioeconomic backgrounds, raising the possibility that pollution levels may be the underlying cause of a large proportion of recent human bone density loss.
