Posted by Flames have caused much damage this year in places like Greece, Hawaii, and Canada. A new study shows that breathing in wildfire may harm your brain health. It may even cause neurocognitive or mood problems. This is in addition to how it affects your lungs and heart.
More and more frequent and severe droughts and heat waves cause forest fires. Which can spread quickly because of the wind or how the plants and soil are made. Some places in Europe, North America, the Pacific, and North Africa have seen this happen in recent years.
France’s Agency for Food, Environmental, and Occupational Health and Safety recently said this harms the environment and people’s health.
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It says that breathing in wildfire smoke can cause problems with the lungs and heart.
Wildfire smoke can contain suspended particles, carbon monoxide, and other chemicals. This is especially dangerous for firefighters and people with chronic lung conditions or heart disease.
But a new study by experts at the University of New Mexico’s Health Sciences suggests that there could be an even bigger effect on health. Their study, published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation, shows that breathing in this kind of smoke could cause brain inflammation and last for at least a month.
“The inflammatory process changes neurotransmitters and signaling molecules in the hippocampus, which is a part of the brain involved in learning and memory,” says the author Matthew Campen.
For their study, the scientists put rodents in the wildfire smoke every other day for two weeks.
At the end of the experiment, they found both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory reactions when tiny particles of smoke got through the blood-brain barrier. This barrier’s job is to keep foreign, sometimes toxic, and disease-causing substances from entering the brain.
Also, this soreness did not go away quickly and may last long.
“We were able to measure the size and length of the inflammatory reaction. We thought it was going to be much shorter. Some of it went on for 28 days, and we didn’t see a full resolution, which was very scary to us,” says David Scieszka, who led the study.
This is a scary thought, especially since forest fires are spreading quickly worldwide and exposing more and more people to this dangerous smoke.
Campen says that neuroinflammation is the cause of many bad things in the brain. For example, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, changes in brain development, and mood problems throughout life.
A firefighter or people living in a community with some of these exposures could have neurocognitive or mood disorders. It could last for weeks or months later.
In case of a forest fire, the French government says to stay inside and block air vents. Putting a wet cloth over your mouth and nose is helpful if you don’t want to breathe in smoke.
Some experts say that you should wear a N95 mask. It is made to filter out particles that could be harmful to you. You should also use an air purifier, especially one with a Hepa filter.
Anisa is a writer who focuses on career and lifestyle topics in an effort to motivate both job searchers and employers towards greater fulfillment in their professional lives.
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