Ah HA! Ah, YES! Air pollution does matter – finally a study proving it.
I like teaching hospitals – the attitude, the open and curious mindset that the body is more than one organ and the friendly, hospitable attitude of the medical professionals and employees is key to a patients – THIS patient – sense of wellbeing..
One of the best teaching hospitals in the nation according to US News and World Report is the University of Washington Medical Center, right across the pond from us here in Kitsap County and where I go for several medical conditions.
In all the years I’ve gone there and parked in the underground parking garage, I’ve never had a reaction to the normal car emissions. The air seems to flow and dissipate the normal car smells. Not so at the UWMC’s Roosevelt Building 11.
Yesterday, I had an appointment at the UWMC’s Roosevelt Building 11 and for the first time did not park in the underground parking but asked my husband to drop me off at the street level front door.
The past odor of the warm choking toxic stench in the underground garage is so bad, my eyes water. My husband says he has never noticed the poor air quality down there but I do.
What does an air quality test show? I called to ask.
I didn’t call to complain about the warm choking smother and forced inhaled sting of the air toxins the first or even second time we parked there – after all it IS underground parking. When I did finally call and did get the right person to ask when they had their last air quality check, I was politely told no one else had ever complained about it but she would find out for me.
About a month later she called to tell me what I smell must be from the helicopter landing emissions and that sometimes she even smells it in her office.
Well, how about a better filter on the helicopter or the parking garage to protect the people who park there AND work in the offices who sometimes smell it…although once inside the building, I’ve never smelled those toxins.
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Air Pollution Exposure Increases Risk of Severe COPD
ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2010) — Long term exposure to low-level air pollution may increase the risk of severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to researcher s in Denmark. While acute exposure of several days to high level air pollution was known to be a risk factor for exacerbation in pre-existing COPD, until now there had been no studies linking long-term air pollution exposure to the development or progression of the disease.
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The research was published online ahead of the print edition of the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
“Our findings have significance on a number of levels,” said lead researcher on the study, Zorana Andersen, Ph.D., post doctoral fellow at the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology of the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen. “Patients, primary care physicians, pulmonologists and public health officials should all take not of our findings.”
Dr. Andersen and colleagues used data from the Danish Diet, Cancer, and Health Study, which consisted of more than 57,000 individuals between the ages of 50 and 64 who lived in Copenhagen or Aarhus, the first and second largest cities in Denmark, between 1993 and 1997. A self-administered questionnaire provided data on smoking, dietary habits, education, occupational history and lifestyle. They then used the unique personal identifiers to link the cohort to the Danish Hospital Discharge Register to identify hospital admissions and discharges due to COPD, and estimated pollution exposure by linking residential addresses to outdoor levels of NO2 and NOx levels, which were used to approximate the overall level of traffic-related pollutants since 1971. They looked at exposures over 15-, 25- and 35-year periods to assess the effect of different exposure lengths on COPD incidence. Data for more than 52,000 were available from the start 1971 to the end of follow-up in 2006.
“We found significant positive associations between levels of all air pollution proxies and COPD incidence,” said Dr. Andersen. “When we adjusted for smoking status and other confounding factors, the association remained significant, indicating that long-term pollution exposure likely is a true risk factor for developing COPD.”
These associations were slightly stronger for men, obese patients and those eating less than 240 grams of fruit each day (approximately eight ounces, or just more than a single serving). But notably, the effect of air pollution on COPD was strongest in people with pre-existing diabetes and asthma.
“These results are in agreement with those of other cross-sectional studies on COPD and air pollution, and longitudinal studies of air pollution and lung function, and strengthen the conclusion that air pollution is a causal agent in development of COPD,” said Dr. Andersen.
Because the study used hospital admissions for COPD to assess incidence, it is likely that the true incidence was underestimated, and that the cases represented severe COPD, as mild and moderate COPD does not often require hospitalization. This means that the reported increase in risk associated with air pollution is probably an underestimate of the true increase in risk for COPD in general. Furthermore, while smoking is known to be the primary cause of COPD in developed countries, and majority of COPD cases were smokers or previous smokers, the effect of pollution exposure was also observed in the group of non-smokers. “This result refutes the possibility that the observed effect of air pollution was due to inadequate adjustment for smoking in our data and supports the idea that air pollution affects COPD risk, irrespective of smoking status,” said Dr. Andersen.
The enhanced association between increased risk of COPD and air pollution in asthmatics and diabetics suggests the possibility of an underlying link. “It is plausible that airflow obstruction and hyper-responsiveness in people with asthma, or systemic inflammation in people with diabetes, can lead to increased susceptibility of the lung to air pollution, resulting in airway inflammation and progression of COPD, but more research is needed in this area.” said Dr. Andersen.
“In any case, sufficient data, including the results of this study, provide evidence that traffic-related urban air pollution contributes to the burden of COPD and that reductions in traffic emissions would be beneficial to public health.”
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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by American Thoracic Society, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Journal Reference:
1. Z. J. Andersen, M. Hvidberg, S. S. Jensen, M. Ketzel, S. Loft, M. Sorensen, A. Tjonneland, K. Overvad, O. Raaschou-Nielsen. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Long-Term Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution: A Cohort Study. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 2010; DOI: 10.1164/rccm.201006-0937OC
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101019111536.htm
More later (part 1 of 3 photo story of one patients Lymphedema) Sharon O’Hara
