Toxic Air Pollution Can Penetrate the Brain: Study

A toxic particle found in polluted urban areas can infiltrate the brain, potentially contributing to degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, according to new research.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds to growing evidence showing how even low levels of air pollution harm human health. Many previous studies have shown how pollution adversely affects the cardiovascular system, causing lung and heart disease. But scientists are increasingly realizing that the effects could extend to other areas like the brain and pregnancy.

Researchers behind the study found that the pollutant magnetite enters the brain through the olfactory nerve, the same fiber that connects the nose with the brain and allows for smell. Magnetite is one pollutant found in particulate matter, a mix of different of a variety of different tiny particles that make up pollution, that pervades many urban areas.

RELATED: Worst Smog in Years Hits Southern California

Air pollution remains a top global health threat despite decades of efforts to stop it. Recent research from the World Health Organization (WHO) found that more than 80% of the world’s urban population lives in areas where air quality regularly fails health standards. Several studies have shown that air pollution contributes to millions of premature deaths annually.

The problem has been particularly acute in developing countries like China and India where cities are often coated in a layer of smog. But recent research has shown how air pollution even in comparatively clean cities in the United States and Europe continues to cause health problems—largely due to the prevalence of diesel vehicles—despite government initiatives to address it. Nearly 6,500 people die early each year in the U.S. due to air pollution. In the United Kingdom, that number totals around 40,000.

RELATED: Preterm Births Linked to Air Pollution Cost Billions in the U.S.

The study’s researchers found high levels of magnetite in tissue from the brains of 37 people who had lived in two polluted urban areas—Mexico City and Manchester. The particles appeared in a different shape than naturally occurring magnetite and were coupled to other similar metals.

Previous research has shown a strong correlation between the rates of exposure to particulate matter. The new research suggests a potential mechanism to explain how the pollution could cause the disease, but determine the precise nature of potential link will require further study.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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What Your Phone Type Says About Your Personality

Your choice of smartphone may affect what other people think of you—and say something about your own personality, as well. In a study presented last week at the British Psychological Society Social Psychology Section annual conference, participants viewed Android users as having greater levels of honesty, humility, agreeableness, and openness than iPhone users. They were also seen as less extroverted.

When the researchers performed personality assessments on both Android and iPhone users, most of these perceptions did not hold true. Android users did, however, rank higher in honesty and humility.

The study was led by Heather Shaw, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom. Shaw notes that while Android and iPhones account for more than 95 percent of all smartphones sold worldwide, individual differences between the two types of consumers have never been studied in this way. That’s surprising, she says, considering how much research there is on how other purchasing decisions can predict personality traits.

She and her colleagues performed two experiments, first asking 240 participants to answer questions about characteristics they associated with users of each smartphone brand. Then, they analyzed personality questionnaires from 530 Android and iPhone users to see if those stereotypes held up.

In addition to the differences in honesty and humility, the researchers found that women were twice as likely as men to choose an iPhone over an Android. People who scored high on “avoidance of similarity”—meaning that they don’t like having the same products as others—were more likely to have an Android, while people who thought it was more important to have a high-status phone were more likely to choose iPhones.

Shaw says she wasn’t surprised to find such differences between the two groups. “iPhone and Android smartphones have different apps, technical specs, and functionalities, which appeal respectively to the users of each smartphone brand due to their personality,” she says. She also says it’s possible that people start to embody the semantics and characteristics of the technologies they own. "So if you buy an iPhone, over time you might start acting like a typical iPhone users.“

Brand choice is the most basic level of smartphone personalization, Shaw says, and her study shows that even this can hold clues as to a user’s personality. There are also plenty of other ways users can customize their smartphones—with colors, cases, photos, and music, for example. “Many of us don’t like it when other people use our phones because it can reveal so much about us,” she points out.

Further research could explore other ways that smartphones can hint at important details about their users—like, for example, studying the specific apps people download. “It is becoming more and more apparent that smartphones are becoming a mini digital version of the user,” she says—a fact that could have implications in the fields of psychology, marketing, user privacy, and more.

Shaw adds, though, that it’s still not fair to assume anything about a person based solely on their smartphone choice. "Humans are very complex, and you can never truly understand what a person is like from one piece of information alone,” she says.

This article originally appeared on RealSimple.com.

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How You Feel About Your Body May Be Genetic, Especially If You’re a Woman

Can our genes make us feel fat? That’s the question asked by University of Colorado Boulder researchers in a new study that examines the extent to which our “weight identity” is ingrained in our DNA. They estimate that perceived weight status is 47 percent heritable, and that genetic influences seem to be particularly strong for women.

Previous research, the study authors note, has suggested that traits like perceived well-being may be due, in large part, to genetic variation. How a person views their health in relation to genetics, however, has rarely been considered. “This study is the first to show that genes may influence how people feel about their weight,” says doctoral student and lead author Robbee Wedow.

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Wedow and his colleagues looked at data from more than 700 pairs of twins (identical and fraternal) who answered questions about their health and body image five times between 1994 and 2008. During each follow-up visit, participants had their body mass index (BMI) measured and were asked how they felt about their own weight. Their answer choices included “very underweight,” “slightly underweight,” “about the right weight,” “slightly overweight,” and “very overweight.”

Studying twins allowed the researchers to tease out the influences of genetics, as opposed to social or environmental triggers, and to see how these influences differ between brothers and sisters who share many of the same genes.

When they crunched the numbers, they determined that how a person feels about their weight has a heritability of 47 percent. (In genetics research, heritability estimates range from zero to 100 percent—zero meaning that genes don’t contribute at all to a certain trait, and 100 meaning that they are the only contributing factor.)

What’s more, perceived weight status remained about 25 percent heritable even when changes in actual BMI were taken into account. “So this is truly connected to how people feel about their weight, even outside of physical changes,” says Wedow.

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This is important, say the study authors, because previous research has shown that how people feel about their bodies has a big effect on things like physical health and longevity.

“One’s own perception about his or her health is a gold standard measure—it predicts mortality better than anything else,” said co-author Jason Boardman, PhD, in a press release. “But those who are less flexible in assessing their changing health over time may be less likely than others to make significant efforts to improve and maintain their health.”

The study, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, also found heritability to be much stronger in women than in men. “The extent to which genes influence weight identify is dependent on gender,” says Wedow. “We believe that the social environment surrounding weight norm differences between women and men likely have something to do with these heritable differences.”

RELATED: The Right Way to Talk to Your Kids About Weight

The researchers were not able to isolate specific genes that may be involved in weight identity, and cannot suggest any actionable advice as a result of their findings. But they are hopeful that their discovery helps fuel further understanding of the many complex reasons people feel the way they do about their bodies.

They also stress that “suggesting a role for genetics does not mean that identities do not and cannot change.” Even when there is a genetic connection to a particular behavior or trait, they say, a person’s upbringing, social environment, and lifestyle choices are still very important in shaping who he or she becomes.

This article originally appeared on RealSimple.com.

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Is There a Natural Solution for Motion Sickness?

Q: I get motion sickness, but meds make me zonked. Is there a natural solution?

A: There are a few home remedies many people find helpful, though the science is wishy-washy. One popular option is acupressure: Massage the underside of your wrist, about three fingers’ width from the wrist crease and right between the two tendons, for five seconds or so. Proponents of acupressure believe that stimulating this point helps alleviate nausea. You can also buy bracelets that are designed to apply pressure to that spot. Whether the method actually works is unclear (some studies suggest it does; others, not so much), but there’s no harm in testing it out.

RELATED: 19 Natural Remedies for Anxiety

Consuming ginger is another old trick. While you could eat the root raw, you may want to try a lozenge, supplement capsule (look for one that contains around 250 milligrams, and take it up to three times daily), or tea instead. Again, the research on whether ginger works is inconsistent, but it’s safe as long as you aren’t on any medications that interfere with blood clotting, such as aspirin or warfarin, since ginger can slow clotting.

If you don’t have these items on hand, try taking very slow, deep breaths until the motion sickness passes. Rapid and shallow breathing might make it worse. Sit closer to the front of the vehicle, whether it’s a car, plane or boat, and keep your eyes on the horizon if possible: A study in Plos One found that staring at the horizon at sea made people steadier than focusing on a point nearby. If all else fails, close your eyes and do your best to ride it out.

Health’s medical editor, Roshini Rajapaksa, MD, is assistant professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine.

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Many Antibacterial Soaps Are Now Banned: FDA

Certain ingredients that are common in antibacterial hand and body soaps are no longer allowed. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Friday that ingredients including triclosan and triclocarban—which have long raised safety concerns because they have been linked to hormone disruption, bacterial resistance, and even possibly liver cancer—will no longer be allowed.

The agency released its long-awaited final ruling on the issue, and said in a statement that companies can no longer market their antibacterial hand and body washes if they contained these ingredients. That’s because “manufacturers did not demonstrate that the ingredients are both safe for long-term daily use and more effective than plain soap and water in preventing illness and the spread of certain infections.”

The FDA says the rule is intended for products that require use with water, and does not include hand sanitizers or wipes. Some companies had preemptively begun removing the ingredients from their soaps due to public pressure and safety concerns.

In 2013, the FDA asked soap manufacturers to provide evidence on the safety and effectiveness of ingredients like triclosan and triclocarban after data suggested that they could increase risks for hormonal problems and bacterial resistance. If companies wanted to continue using these ingredients they had to prove that they worked better at reducing infections than products that didn’t contain them. The FDA says companies did not provide adequate safety and effectiveness data for 19 different ingredients.

RELATED: The Case Against Antibacterial Soap Is Getting Stronger

“Consumers may think antibacterial washes are more effective at preventing the spread of germs, but we have no scientific evidence that they are any better than plain soap and water,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) said in a statement. “In fact, some data suggests that antibacterial ingredients may do more harm than good over the long-term.”

You can read more about the FDA’s decision here.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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More Americans Are Using Marijuana and Don’t See it as Harmful

More Americans are using marijuana, and fewer people think that regularly doing so is harmful.

The new study shows that from 2002 to 2014, the number of American adults who used marijuana in the last year increased by 10 million and the number of people who used it daily increased by more than four million. More adults also started using marijuana for the first time. Yet there was not an increase in reported marijuana abuse or dependence.

The study, which was published in the The Lancet Psychiatry, surveyed over 50,000 adults between the years 2002 and 2014. Interestingly, the researchers also observed a drop—50% to 33%—in the number of people who thought that smoking marijuana once or twice a week was harmful.

The researchers note that the change in how people thought about and used marijuana happened in 2007. At that point, 12 states in the U.S. had legalized medical marijuana use. Policy changes may have impacted the number of people who use marijuana and how the public perceives it, the researchers argue.

“I hope my medical colleagues will start inquiring of their adult patients if they are using marijuana because it could interact with other medications or treatments,” says study author Dr. Wilson Compton of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “The fact that people are using it on a regular basis means the public health community needs to be paying attention.”

The study authors write that there should be prevention efforts to “target the reduction in perceived harm of using marijuana.” They add that heavy marijuana use was associated with unemployment, lower-than-average income, diminished life satisfaction and criminal behavior, though it wasn’t shown that marijuana caused those issues.

Other researchers are keen to study the effects of marijuana and argue that it’s safe and has much potential for medicinal uses, like for pain treatment, anxiety, Alzheimer’s disease and more.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Sitting in Traffic is Bad for Your Health

If you’ll be driving on busy roads this holiday weekend, you might want to take note of a new study about traffic and air pollution: The research, conducted by the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, suggests that keeping car windows closed and fans switched off while stuck in slow-moving traffic jams can reduce your risk of exposure to toxic fumes by up to 76 percent.

Using the fan’s or air conditioner’s “recirculate” option ranked second best when researchers tested five different ventilation settings, and they say that this can also be a good choice for reducing exposure to pollutants.

The findings aren’t just applicable to weekend or vacation driving; in their paper, the study authors note that daily commuting time has increased over the years in Britain, where people spent about an hour each day driving to and from work in 2013. The numbers are similar in the United States: Americans spend an average of nearly 52 minutes on their round-trip commutes, according to 2013 government data.

RELATED: The Psychology of Road Rage

Air pollution is considered among the top 10 health risks faced by humans by the World Health Organization, which attributes it to 7 million premature deaths a year. It’s an especially big problem in urban cities, the study authors write, where traffic-light intersections are known as “pollution hotspots that contribute disproportionately higher to overall commuting exposure.” Last year, the same researchers showed that drivers stuck at traffic lights were exposed to up to 29 times more harmful pollution particles than those driving in free-flowing traffic.

In London, they note, air pollution is estimated to kill more than 10 times the amount of people as automobile accidents.  And in the United States, exposure to ambient particulate matter is the eighth leading cause of death.

The researchers wanted to study the effects of different vehicle ventilation systems on a driver’s or passenger’s exposure to both fine and coarse particulate matter—two types of pollution consisting of vehicle exhaust, ozone, and other toxins prevalent the air. So they performed readings both inside and outside a 2002 Ford Fiesta in Guildford, a “typical UK town” of about 137,000 residents, at busy three- and four-way traffic intersections during winter-season rush hours.

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Five scenarios were studied, with different combinations of windows (open or closed), fan (off, partial speed, or full speed), and heat (off, low temperature, or high temperature). When it came to pollution exposure, results varied widely depending on the ventilation.

When driving with the windows open, particulate matter readings in the car were equal to those outside of the car. When the windows were rolled up and the fan was switched off, however, exposure to particulate matter was reduced by up to 76 percent.

“Where possible and with weather conditions allowing, it is one of the best ways to limit your exposure by keeping windows shut, fans turned off and to try and increase the distance between you and the car in front while in traffic jams or stationary at traffic lights,” said lead author Prashant Kumar, Ph.D., in a press release. “If the fan or heater needs to be on, the best setting would be to have the air re-circulating within the car without drawing in air from outdoors.”

RELATED: How to (Safely) Share the Road With Bad Drivers

Kumar’s study isn’t the first to suggest that hitting the recirculate button is a good option while stuck in traffic; a 2013 study from University of California researchers also came to similar conclusions. This was, however one of the first studies to test several different ventilation options head-to-head at busy urban intersections, specifically.

This article originally appeared on RealSimple.com.

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