How Diesel Exhaust Affects Your Brain
As if it wasn’t bad enough that particulate matter from diesel exhaust causes a range of respiratory problems including 15,000 premature deaths each year, new research shows that even short-term exposure to nanoparticles found in diesel fumes can affect brain function.
Nanoparticles can travel to the brain via the olfactory nerve, where they could cause an oxidative stress response in the region of the brain critical to information processing.
Researchers placed subjects in a room with either clean air or diesel fumes (similar to a busy street), and used a electro- encephalograph (EEG) to measure brain response. Subjects breathing the sooty air showed a stress response in the brain’s cortex within 30 minutes, which continued even after they left the room.
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The researchers hypothesize that the effects of diesel exhaust could be caused by nanoparticles slowly penetrating the brain or affecting brain signaling. Oxidative stress has also been linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and long-term exposure to these fumes conceivably could decrease cognitive function, they write.
This is bad news for an especially susceptible population—children—who spend significant amounts of time in diesel buses. According to the EPA, twenty-four million children ride in diesel school buses each day, amounting to about one half-hour per child. Research has also shown that the level of diesel exhaust inside school buses is substantially higher than outside. School districts and municipalities can mitigate this issue by retrofitting buses with newer emissions control devices, avoiding unnecessary idling, replacing the oldest buses, and using biodiesel to reduce particulate emissions.
Luckily for the rest of us, the US has the highest emissions standards in the world for passenger cars, and a comparatively low use of diesel vehicles. The new clean diesels on the market now do not produce the same dirty exhaust as older models.
But until our nation’s fleets get upgraded, it’s going to irritate me even more when a garbage truck rolls by.
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Source: ES&T (Mar. 26, 2008): Your brain on diesel fumes
[...] doesn’t include the health care and societal cost of the estimated 15,000 premature deaths attributed to diesel exhaust each [...]
Has anyone heard of testing instruments that can be used to determine specific kinds of diesel pollutants? In reference to testing the air in close relation to highways? Thanks.
WELL UNLIKE THE REST OF YOU TREE HUGGING FOOLS I PREFER DIESEL OVER GASOLINE ANYDAY INFACT I USE ONE AS MY MAIN SOURCE OF TRANSPORTATION HERES A COUPLE OF GOOD REASONS WHY. ONE,”MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK” I GOTTA PAY A LITTLE MORE FOR FUEL BUT IVE GOT A LOT MORE POWER. TWO, IT BURNS CLEANER THEREFOR CREATING LESS CARBONDIOXIDE THAT CAUSES “GLOBAL WARMING” AND THREE ITS JUST FUN TO DRIVE. SO QUITE FRANKLY I DONT CARE WHAT YOU THINK OR EVEN IF YOU DECIDE TO PUBLISH THIS IM STILL GONNA DRIVE MY TRUCK LOUD AND PROUD
GIT-R-DONE