Does Air Pollution Hurt Memory of Older Adults?

Air pollution may be bad for older brains, a new study shows.

Older adults who live in areas of high pollution did not do as well on tests of memory and other thinking skills, according to a new study.

"We know that air pollution is harmful for a child's developing brain," says researcher Jennifer Ailshire, PhD. She is a National Institute on Aging postdoctoral fellow at the Andrus Gerontology Center of the University of Southern California.

"Now we are starting to understand that air pollution is also harmful for the aging brain," she says.

She presented the findings today at the Gerontological Society of America meeting in San Diego.