More evidence shows exposure to traffic and outdoor air pollution increases risk of asthma

Posted on April 6, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

Long-term exposure to high levels of road traffic and ozone significantly increases the risk of asthma symptoms, asthma attacks or the need for use of asthma medications, according to a new study published in the European Respiratory Journal [1].

The study strengthens the evidence on the link between long-term exposure to outdoor pollution and asthma in adults.

It also offers new insights in to what the underlying mechanisms are, by examining the concentration of 8-isoprostane (8-iso), which is exhaled in the breath and believed to be a biological marker of tissue damage in the lungs.

Lead researcher Anaïs Havet, from the French Institute of Health and Medical Research at Inserm, France, said: “It is very well known that short-term exposure to air pollution is associated with increased asthma symptoms, hospitalisations and use of asthma medication, but studies on the associations between long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution and asthma among adults are still scarce.

“We wanted to try and better understand the underlying biological mechanisms associated with outdoor air pollution and increased asthma symptoms, asthma attacks or medication use, as up to now they were largely unknown.”

Using French cohort data from 608 adults, including 240 with asthma who had respiratory symptoms, asthma attacks or increased medication use in the previous 12 months, the research team estimated the impact of long-term exposure to high intensity traffic and to different types of outdoor air pollutants called ozone and particulate matter.

They also studied the associations between long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution, exhaled 8-iso and current asthma. A high concentration of 8-iso is thought to increase airway responsiveness, and can increase the production of mucus and cause contraction of the airway muscles, making it difficult to breathe.

Concentration of 8-iso was measured using a non-invasive test on the exhaled breath of participants. Data on the levels of road traffic and air pollution were taken from the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects and French Institute for the Environment assessments.

The researchers took account for other factors that can affect asthma including age, sex, smoking habits, body mass index, socio-economic class and exposure to cleaning chemicals.

The data showed that high traffic intensity, ozone exposure and 8-iso concentration increased the risk of current asthma.

Among participants without asthma, exhaled 8-iso concentration significantly increased due to exposure to particulate matter.

Havet explained the key findings: “For the first time in adults, we found associations between long-term exposures to outdoor air pollution, exhaled 8-iso concentration and current asthma.

“Based on this, we think that 8-iso is a marker related to one of the underlying biological mechanisms by which outdoor air pollution increases the risk of experiencing asthma symptoms, asthma attacks or the need for use of asthma medications.”

The researchers say that although air pollution levels in Western Europe are relatively low when compared to cities in Asia or Latin-America, study participants were still exposed to pollution levels that exceed the values recommended by the World Health Organization.

Havet added: “Our research reinforces the fact that air pollution levels found in Europe are still too high to preserve lung health, and the impact on health is likely to be even greater in other parts of the world with higher levels of pollution.

“Efforts should be made to limit air pollution emissions, with more emphasis on moving towards cleaner cities with fewer cars and more efficient public transport.”

The researchers note that this study only looked at air pollution exposure at the participants’ home address and did not have data on their exposure at other locations, and say that larger longitudinal studies are now needed to confirm their results.

via More evidence shows exposure to traffic and outdoor air pollution increases risk of asthma | EurekAlert! Science News

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Household air pollution linked to cardiovascular disease risk

Posted on April 6, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

Exposure to household air pollution from using wood or coal for cooking and heating is associated with higher risk of death from heart attack and stroke, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Around three billion people worldwide use solid fuels (e.g. coal, wood, charcoal and crop wastes) to cook and to heat their homes. When burnt, these fuels produce smoke that contains a very high concentration of fine particles (known as PM2.5) and other harmful substances, especially in houses without adequate ventilation.

It is estimated that worldwide about 2.5 million deaths in 2016 were related to the resulting household air pollution. In China, despite rapid urbanisation in recent decades, about one in three people still rely heavily on solid fuels, mostly coal and wood, for domestic purposes. The health impact of household air pollution on the Chinese population is therefore believed to be substantial, but previous research has not provided concrete evidence.

Researchers from the University of Oxford, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and Peking University in China have studied the association of the long-term use of solid fuels for cooking and heating with the risk of death from cardiovascular disease in a large study of 271,000 residents in five rural areas in China.

This study is based on the China Kadoorie Biobank prospective study of 0.5 million adults from five urban and five rural areas, which was established jointly by the University of Oxford and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences during 2004-08. The present report only included participants from 5 rural areas, where use of solid fuels for domestic purposes is still common. The health status of study participants was monitored through linkages to death registries for an average of seven years. During this time over 5,500 participants died of cardiovascular disease (e.g. stroke, heart attack) among those who had no history of cardiovascular disease at the initial recruitment.

The researchers found that, compared with people who mainly used gas or electricity (‘clean fuels’), those who regularly cooked using coal or wood (‘solid fuels’) had a 20% higher mortality risk from cardiovascular disease, and people who heated their homes using solid fuels had a 29% increase in risk, after taking account of the effects of age, sex, socio-economic status, smoking, alcohol drinking, diet, physical activity, and adiposity. The study also showed clearly that the longer people used solid fuels, the higher the risk of death. Moreover, there were synergistic effects of household air pollution and tobacco smoking, with the risk of death from cardiovascular disease being 76% higher among smokers who used solid fuel than non-smokers who used clean fuels.

Study author, Professor Zhengming Chen, from the University of Oxford, UK, the co-lead Principal Investigator of the China Kadoorie Biobank, said: ‘Air pollution has caused a lot of concern in China, but people have been focusing mainly on the outdoor air quality and overlooking the health consequences of pollution arising from domestic burning of coal and wood for cooking and heating, which may have a more profound impact on health.’

While it is known that burning solid fuels gives rise to harmful PM2.5, the direct evidence linking household air pollution to long-term risk of death, especially from cardiovascular causes, has been very limited. The analysis of data in this very large study provides new evidence of the hazards of long-term exposure and ways to mitigate excess risk of death. The study showed that switching from solid to clean fuels for cooking reduced the risk of cardiovascular death by 17% and switching from solid to clean fuels for heating reduced the risk by 43%. An equally important finding was that individuals who cooked on stoves using solid fuels but had proper ventilation had an 11% lower risk, compared with those whose cookstoves were not properly ventilated.

Study author, Professor Tangchun Wu, from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, said: ‘These findings are important because even though people might have been using solid fuels for a long time, there are still clear health benefits in switching to cleaner fuels. Installing ventilation facilities will be a cheaper and effective alternative for those who cannot switch to clean fuels.’

In recent decades, Chinese government has launched a massive campaign to replace traditional cooking stoves and to encourage more widespread use of clean fuels. Findings from this study confirm the health benefits of switching to clean fuels and having proper ventilation. Despite this, use of solid fuel to cook and heat and poor ventilation are still prevalent in many rural areas of China, which will continue to cause many premature deaths from vascular (and many other) diseases.

Study author, Professor Liming Li, Peking University, China, the co-lead Principal Investigator of the China Kadoorie Biobank, said: ‘We can’t conclude from these observational findings that burning coal and wood on its own is causing death, but, irrespective of this, China and other low and middle-income countries should encourage their people to change to cleaner domestic fuels, and to prioritise policies and practices to allow a swift, widespread and sustainable switch.’

The full paper can be read in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

via Household air pollution linked to cardiovascular disease risk | University of Oxford

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Air pollution in Sofia, other Bulgarian cities hugely exceeded norms several times this winter

Posted on April 5, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

In Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia, air pollution norms were exceeded 70 times in the heating period from October 2017 to March 2018, citizens’ initiative AirBG.info told a news conference on April 4, the eve of the first anniversary of the announcement of the group’s founding.

The day with the worst air pollution in Sofia was January 27, when the norm was exceeded six times over, at 331 units per cubic metre. This was a record for all areas where the group has sensors.

The group joined the Luftdaten.info network in 2017 and announced its founding on April 5, the day that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said that it had ruled against Bulgaria in a case brought by the European Commission against the country over its failure to implement measures to reduce air pollution.

There are 300 sensors measuring air quality in Sofia and more than 600 in various parts of Bulgaria.

AirBG.info’s Stefan Dimitrov said that by now, the group had taken about 42 million measurements of air.

Petar Kirov of the group said that the youngest volunteer participating in the group was 13 years old and the oldest, 76.

Svetoslav Ivanov said the two main reason for the air pollution were solid fuel heating and motor vehicle traffic. This kind of heating, in combination with temperature inversions in winter, were the most serious problem in Sofia and other large cities in Bulgaria including Plovdiv, Varna and Blagoevgrad.

Other bad days in Sofia this past winter season were January 8, 27 and February 13, when air pollution was about five to six times the norm.

Dimitrov said that the good news was that the group’s network was expanding rapidly. The authorities showed interest in the topic of air pollution. The group had held meetings with Environment Minister Neno Dimov, Sofia mayor Yordanka Fandukova and with scientists, and other good news was the decision to carry out measurements jointly with the Environment Executive Agency.

via Air pollution in Sofia, other Bulgarian cities hugely exceeded norms several times this winter | The Sofia Globe

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Poor air quality recorded in most of western Taiwan

Posted on April 4, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

The air quality in most parts of western Taiwan on Wednesday was generally rated “unhealthy,” prompting state-owned Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) to reduce the output of two coal-fired power plants to cut air pollution emissions.

As of noon, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA)’s Air Quality Index (AQI) flashed an orange warning, indicating unhealthy air for sensitive groups, at 31 monitoring stations in parts of western Taiwan.

The orange warnings were concentrated in central and southern Taiwan, but three also appeared in the north — in Banqiao in New Taipei, Guanyin in Taoyuan and Hukou in Hsinchu — according to the EPA’s Taiwan Air Quality Monitoring Network.

The air quality was rated as either good or fair in eastern Taiwan and mostly fair in the greater Taipei area, the monitoring data showed.

With the high number of monitoring stations flashing orange alerts in the central and southern parts of the country, Taipower reduced power generation at the coal-fired Taichung Power Plant and Hsinta Power Plant to cut air pollution emissions, according to the EPA.

The EPA’s AQI takes into account ozone, PM2.5 and PM10 particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitric oxide concentrations in the air.

via Poor air quality recorded in most of western Taiwan | Society | FOCUS TAIWAN – CNA ENGLISH NEWS

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Agricultural fires can double Delhi pollution during peak burning season: Pollution may reach levels up to 20 times higher than safe limits

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

Pollution may reach levels up to 20 times higher than safe limits

It’s become a deadly autumn tradition in northern India: after the rains of the late summer monsoon subside, farmers set fires to their fields to clear stubble after the harvest and send choking smoke rolling across the countryside. New Delhi, already thick with pollution, can grind to a halt for days. Last year, the chief minister of the Delhi state likened the city to “a gas chamber.”

While crop burning has been illegal for years, there hasn’t been a large enough deterrent to effectively crack down on the practice, in part because it’s been difficult to measure exactly how much smoke from the fires is making it downwind to the city.

Now, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have demonstrated that in October and November, a peak burning season in nearby Punjab, about half of all pollution in Delhi can be attributed to agricultural fires on some days.

The research is published in Environmental Research Letters.

“On certain days during peak fire season, air pollution in Delhi is about 20 times higher than the threshold for safe air as defined by the World Health Organization,” said Daniel H. Cusworth, a graduate student at SEAS and first author of the paper.

To model how much of that pollution is coming from the fires, the researchers used satellite data from NASA to identify hotspots corresponding to active fires. The team gathered available data for October and November, 2012 to 2016 and plugged it into a particle dispersion model — an algorithm that accounts for geography, wind patterns, and physics to predict how far and in what direction smoke particles travel.

During the post-monsoon season, the air in northern India is particularly stagnant, meaning smoke particles don’t vent into the atmosphere as they would during other times of the year. Instead, the black carbon and organic particulate matter slowly permeates throughout the entire region, which is home to 46 million people. In urban areas, that smoke mixes with existing pollution from cars and factories creating a thick, deadly haze.

On average, without fires, urban Delhi experiences about 150 micrograms per cubic meter of fine particulate air pollution.

To put that into perspective, the World Health Organization (WHO) puts the threshold for safe air at 25 micrograms per cubic meter, and India’s Central Pollution Control Board limits exposure to 60 micrograms per cubic meter, said Cusworth, a member of the Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Group led by Daniel J. Jacob, the Vasco McCoy Family Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, and Loretta J. Mickley, Senior Research Fellow at SEAS.

Extreme fires during the post-monsoon season can pump on average about 150 micrograms per cubic meter of fine particulate matter into the city, doubling the amount of pollution and increasing total levels 12 times higher than WHO recommendations, and even 20 times higher on some days.

“A relationship between pollution and mortality is well known,” said Mickley, who co-authored of the paper. “We hope this research can help provide policymakers with a quantitative sense of the consequences of agricultural burning in order to inform decision-making.”

The paper was co-authored by Melissa P. Sulprizio, Tianjia Liu, Miriam E. Marlier, Ruth S. DeFries, and Sarath K. Guttikunda, and Pawan Gupta.

via Agricultural fires can double Delhi pollution during peak burning season: Pollution may reach levels up to 20 times higher than safe limits — ScienceDaily

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China renews blue alert for sandstorms

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

The national weather observatory continued its blue alert for sandstorms on Wednesday, forecasting wind and dust for north China.

From Wednesday evening to Thursday, parts of Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, Shaanxi and Xinjiang will be affected by the dust, said the National Meteorological Center.

Parts of Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Gansu will be swept by sandstorms.

Since Monday, the country’s northern areas have witnessed their fourth wave of dusty weather this year, affecting more than 9 provincial-level regions and covering an area of 1.5 million square kilometers, NMC data showed.

The sandstorms led to serious air pollution Wednesday. Monitoring stations in Beijing showed PM10 and PM2.5 readings jumped to nearly 2,000 micrograms per cubic meter and over 300 micrograms per cubic meter, respectively.

The center suggested people in the affected regions close their doors and windows at home and wear masks outdoors

China has a four-tier color-coded system for severe weather, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

via China renews blue alert for sandstorms – SHINE

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Beijing Experiences First Big Sandstorm of 2018; High Pollution Levels Leave Beijingers Dismayed

Posted on March 28, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

Beijingers woke up to extremely thick haze and PM10 levels of over 2,000 this morning (Mar 28) as a sandstorm settled over the capital. Though pollution levels have crept back gradually since Spring Festival, following one of the best winters Beijing has seen in five years, the off-the-scale measurements this morning have reignited widespread high-strung rhetoric about the city’s air quality.

Many of the panicked Beijingers posting photos of the soupy horizon and writing frantic messages in WeChat groups about local air quality were somewhat relieved to hear that the wildly high amounts of PM10 (bigger particulate matter than the more commonly reported on PM2.5 levels) could be attributed to the sandstorm.

Yann Boquillod, creator of the AirVisual air quality monitor, reassured fellow members of a pollution-centric WeChat group who were lobbing questions and concerns his way, writing: “The winds are supposed to blow the pollution [away], instead it brought sand. Wait for a few hours, it will be gone. Sandstorms don’t last very long, usually.”

PM10 is considered less unhealthy that its smaller PM2.5 counterpart given that though they can enter the lungs as you breathe, their larger size means that they do not pass into our bloodstream. Nevertheless, state media reports that PM2.5 levels reached 255 this morning, putting it into “very unhealthy” territory (according to the official Beijing Real-time Air Quality Index) but not wholly dissimilar to what we’ve experienced over the past few days.

For some context, Beijing has certainly seen worse, say during the stretch of red alert level smog in late 2016 and late 2015, or the “airpocalypse” of 2013.

Such ongoing concerns are compounded for parents like Sugandha Joshi, who hails from India and arrived in Beijing last year with her family. “Pollution was our biggest concern when we decided to move into Beijing, but we were so glad to find that throughout the winter the air was clean,” she says. However, now she is left to wonder “why the pollution is increasing with the arrival of spring? As a mother of a three-year-old who goes to a kindergarten, naturally, I am concerned.”

Geiger

Geiger with his daughter. He tells the Beijinger that “My toddler has grown up thinking the sky is normally white.” – Photo: Kyle Mullin, courtesy of Kevin Geiger

Another expat parent named Kevin Geiger, who has lived in Beijing since 2008, concurs, saying he is deeply worried about how the capital’s air quality is affecting his three-year-old daughter and his newborn. “My toddler has grown up thinking the sky is normally white,” he says. However, the recent resurgence in smog hasn’t prompted him to flee the capital just yet. “Simply pulling up and out is not so simple. Our lives and our children’s lives are here,” he says.

Those of us who, like Geiger, have decided to remain in Beijing despite its notorious haze can be heartened by one point raised by an air quality expert, who spoke to the Beijinger on the condition of anonymity. He said: “We estimate that we had 50 percent fewer emissions over this winter compared to last.” He went on to attribute that to actual progress, rather than flukes like better weather, saying: “The [recent] good weather was not the reason for low pollution because the weather was nearly the same as previous years.” Based on that, the prospects for Beijing’s air quality are still boding well overall, meaning the grim appearance of today’s skyline or the uptick of smog in recent weeks shouldn’t leave us to despair just yet.

Remember, if you’re concerned about high pollution levels, avoid exercising outside, stay in a low-polluted environment (via an air filter etc.), and wear a mask that works if you do need to venture outside. For articles on these and more, read our full air pollution coverage here.

via Beijing Experiences First Big Sandstorm of 2018; High Pollution Levels Leave Beijingers Dismayed | the Beijinger

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As fires spread in North, pollution levels spiral

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Respro® UK Ltd

Public cautioned to respect burning ban 

Air pollution in northern Lampang and Phayao provinces escalated to hazardous levels yesterday as fires spread in the region.

The PM10 level stood at between 81 and 104 microgrammes per cubic metre, up from Sunday’s readings, according to information provided by the Pollution Control Department’s (PCD) measuring stations in Lampang’s Muang and Mae Mo districts.

Though the levels were still under the safe limit of 120 ug/m³, officials said they were treating the situation seriously as dust levels continue to rise.

Forest fires are a major cause of fine dust, or particulate matter known as PM10. These particles are less than 10 microns in diameter — or about 1/7th as thick as a human hair. PM10 can trigger asthma attacks, cause or aggravate bronchitis and other lung diseases, and reduce the body’s ability to fight infections, according to information from the PCD.

Hazy conditions in the North have been blamed on fires tied to agricultural burning practices and the extreme dryness seen from February to April, when rainfall is less common.

The situation in Lampang deteriorated Monday as brush fires in Chae Som forest reserve kept expanding, Ronnarong Koetnuan, head of the reserve’s fire-forest prevention unit, told media outlets.

So far, 59 rai have been ravaged, including forest areas inside the Doi Phra Bat wildlife sanctuary and Mae Suk-Mae Soi forest reserve in Muang Pan district. Mr Ronnarong pointed an accusing finger at…

via As fires spread in North, pollution levels spiral | Bangkok Post: news

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