There are no autopsy studies except for occupational exposure to dust that link polluted air with poor health.Some studies have demonstrated how small pollution particles and let’s limit ourselves now to PM2.5, might enter the bloodstream and be engulfed by tissue.But no direct evidence of causation.
A laboratory study looked at the genomics and metabolomics of diabetes mellitus in mice.
A control group of mice was fed a high-fat diet that would result in the development of insulin resistance and diabetes and served as a control; the treatment group had “mice chow,” and were exposed to 10 times the concentration of ambient PM2.5 for several hours a day over about three months.
As with all good studies, it raises more questions than it answers; and of course, it has limitations.It was a study in mice, employing significantly higher concentrations of PM2.5 than our exposure.The dosage that the mice received (exposure time multiplied by PM2.5 density) was also considerably higher since most human activity takes place indoors where ambient PM2.5 is significantly lower.Finally, the differences were not seen in female mice, only the males.
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