As the National Capital continues to suffer under a blanket of smog and the air quality seems to be taking a downward spiral, a peer-reviewed study, which was carried out based on 8,500 children, found that air pollution caused by ammonium nitrate can lead to poor learning and memory performance in children between 9 and 10 years of age. This was stated in a report by ANI.
How is ammonium nitrate formed? When ammonia gas and nitric acid, produced by agricultural activities and fossil fuel combustion, respectively, react in the atmosphere.
“The specific component of fine particle air pollution, or PM2.5, ammonium nitrate, is also implicated in Alzheimer’s and dementia risk in adults, suggesting that PM2.5 may cause neurocognitive harm across the lifespan,” noted the findings appearing in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Megan Herting, an associate professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC), United States of America (USA), called “for more detailed research on particulate matter sources and chemical components”.
For the study, the team used special statistical techniques to look at 15 chemical components in PM2.5 and their sources. They found ammonium nitrate as a prime suspect.
