Air Pollution Can Lower Your Intelligence, Study Says

MURRAY, Utah – Bad air can mean bad news for your IQ, according to a study that looks at some of the cities with the worst air quality in the world – much worse than what we see in Utah. The study, done by the National Academy of Sciences found that both verbal and math scores decreased as exposure to cumulative air pollution increased, especially in older, less-educated men. The increased intake of bad air also resulted in a higher risk for Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia, according to a report by CNN.

Denitza Blagev, a pulmonologist at Intermountain Medical Center says the results appear to make sense, since what we breathe goes into the bloodstream and eventually into the brain. She did note however, that cities included in the study had significantly worse air quality than we see along the Wasatch front, even during inversion times. Blagev says there’s still reason to take precautions in avoiding breathing in too much polluted air. We should also make efforts to keep the air clean.

“I think we want to see the air quality that we have, and think that we don’t want to get that level,” Blagev said. “And we want to do things now to prevent it from getting that bad, and hopefully improving it.”