Air Pollution Not Tied to Weight Gain in Adult Women
In an article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Laura White, associate professor of biostatistics, and colleagues from the Slone Epidemiology Center at BU probed the association between ambient air pollution exposure and weight gain over 16 years among a large group of African American women in the long-running Black Women’s Health Study (BWHS). Levels of fine particulate matter, ozone, and nitrogen oxide were estimated at participants’ residential locations in 56 metro areas, and weight was tracked. The study adjusted for potential confounders, such as diet, neighborhood socioeconomic status, exercise, births, and smoking status.
The researchers found “no consistent pattern between weight change and pollutant exposure across BMI (body mass index) or SES (socioeconomic status) categories,” the study says. “The weight change associated with other exposures (such as different diet patterns and pregnancies) … was more substantial.”
The only statistically significant weight change detected was a loss of 0.50 kg over 16 years associated with each quartile increase in nitrogen dioxide. The authors said that finding may have emerged by chance or may reveal “underlying challenges in analyses of air pollution” where multiple environmental factors play a role.
Substantial research has been dedicated to understanding the reasons for the dramatic rise in obesity rates in the US in the past two decades. Animal studies and epidemiologic studies in children have suggested that air pollution might contribute to weight gain. In one such study, mice exposed to diesel exhaust prenatally were found to have greater weight gain in adulthood.
White and her co-authors noted that their models for particulate matter and nitrogen oxide levels relied on government monitoring sites, which tend to be located away from major roadways—meaning pollution exposures may have been underestimated.
Other BU authors on the study were: Lynn Rosenberg, associate director of the Slone Epidemiology Center and professor of epidemiology; Patricia Coogan, senior epidemiologist at Slone and research professor of epidemiology; and Jeffrey Yu, research data manager at Slone.
Submitted by Lisa Chedekel