LONDON, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- Microscopic pollutant particles emitted by traffic and industry can enter the bloodstream and the brain after being inhaled, British scientists have found.
The particles are known to cause lung damage in susceptible patients and are implicated in cardiovascular disease, the BBC said Thursday. Experiments on rats and humans have now discovered they can penetrate further into the body, with unknown results.
Ken Donaldson, Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, said these sorts of particles were known to cause damage at the point of entry to the human body.
What was new, he said, was the discovery by researchers in Europe and the United States that they "can get to areas that bigger particles cannot reach."
These very small pieces of matter are called nanoparticles, defined as anything smaller than 100 nanometers in size. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter or 80,000 times smaller than a human hair.
