Adults living within a football field distance of an LA freeway accumulate arterial plaque¹ at double the rate.

“For the first time, we have shown that air pollution contributes to the early formation of heart disease, known as atherosclerosis, which is connected to nearly half the deaths in Western societies and to a growing proportion of deaths in the rapidly industrializing nations of Asia and Latin America,” said study co-author Michael Jerrett, UC Berkeley associate professor of environmental health sciences. “The implications are that by controlling air pollution from traffic, we may see much larger benefits to public health than we thought previously.”

Any major metropolitan area has auto-particulate pollution above acceptable levels of safety on many days of the year. Such toxins add to the low-grade inflammatory burden that is a main driving force behind heart disease. Thus, even though you may not be living close to a freeway in LA, this information is of relevance to any big city dweller.

Of course, this is just one source of pollution and there are many others. This is why it is vital to use nutrition to protect and assist your liver in this rather cruel pollution experiment that could best be described as survival of the fittest.