Air pollution exposure may boost risk of early death

Levels of air pollution have been illegally high in 16 British cities since 2010, which doctors say causes heart and lung problems, increased risks of stroke and dementia, and reduced educational attainment among children.

“Residential energy use is an inefficient form of fuel combustion that causes a lot of smoke, and is the foremost source of premature air pollution-related mortality in Asia”, the region most affected by outdoor air pollution, said lead author Jos Lelieveld, a professor of atmospheric physics at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany.

They also considered the location of participants, such as those in California, which has some of the most restrictive pollution laws in the United States, finding no difference in the risk of death due to particle exposure.

“Our data add to a growing body of evidence that particulate matter is really harmful to health, increasing overall mortality, mostly deaths from cardiovascular disease, as well as deaths from respiratory disease in nonsmokers”, lead study investigator and health epidemiologist George Thurston of New York University’s Langone Medical Center, said in a statement.

The info confirmed that even small will increase within the quantity of particles – typically made up of chemical compounds similar to arsenic, selenium, and mercury, gaseous pollution resembling sulfur and nitrogen oxides – can result in a three % general improve within the danger of dying.

Newer research tends to further implicate dirty air in health problems, said Dr. Norman Edelman, a senior consultant for scientific affairs with the American Lung Association.

The United States came seventh in the top-ranked countries, with an estimated 55,000 deaths linked to air pollution.

“We need to better inform policymakers about the types and sources of particulate pollution so they know where to focus regulations”, he said.

“This projection should sound alarm bells for public-health agencies around the world”, wrote Michael Jerrett, an environmental health professor at UCLA, in a editorial published simultaneously in Nature. Thurston said the pollution particulates are so small – not visible to the eye – as to bypass the body’s normal defenses and are absorbed deep into the lungs and then into the blood stream. Agricultural operations were the second-biggest cause and a major pollution source in the eastern USA , Europe, Russian Federation and Japan, accounting for a fifth of deaths.

The report warns that, unless action is taken, the number of deaths – already equivalent to six deaths every minute – will double by 2050.

Lelieveld says that when the team ran a “business as usual” scenario to 2050, the model predicted that there would be 6.6 million premature deaths globally from air pollution.

While outdoor household air pollution from solid fuels was the leading cause of mortality (0.44 million deaths) even in China, other sources like agriculture (0.39 million deaths) power generation (0.24 million deaths) caused a sizable number of deaths unlike in India.

The authors of the study did perform some additional calculations to see how their results would change if they assumed that carbonaceous particles were five times more toxic than inorganic particles.

It may seem impossible to avoid air pollution; it completely surrounds us. “It is especially important to continue monitoring health risks as national standards for air pollution are strengthened”.

They also hope to determine the source of these pollutants. That’s based on no change in air pollution.