Could the effects of air pollution be mediated by the mix of bugs in our airways? It seems that exposure to pollutants correlates with differences in the species of bacteria living in our respiratory tracts. This may be a hidden link between pollution and disease.
Numerous studies have shown that air pollution raises our risk of certain conditions, such as heart disease and stroke. Even in the UK, which has relatively clean air, pollution is blamed for up to 50,000 premature deaths a year.
Why this link exists, however, is unclear. To look into one possible cause, Jacopo Mariani and his colleagues at the University of Milan, Italy, took nasal swabs from 40 people living in and around Milan to investigate whether pollution affected the types of bacteria that colonise our airways.
Just like the gut, our airways contain a community of microbes, most of which are harmless. In fact, some probably offer us benefits. The team used genetic sequencing to identify the bacteria present, and compared these types with levels of air pollution recorded by nearby monitoring stations.
Higher levels of particulates in the air from three days before sampling correlated with a lower diversity of bacteria in the nasal swabs. This could be a bad thing, says Mariani, because decreased diversity might affect the functions that bacteria provide to the host.
For instance, the concentration of Actinobacteria, the dominant group in a healthy microbiome, was lower in volunteers exposed to higher levels of pollution. The part that these bacteria play in the body is not yet clear, but they are known to produce compounds with antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties.
Another group of bacteria that can cause harmful respiratory infections, Moraxella, was typically found in greater concentrations in people exposed to higher pollution levels.
Not to be sniffed at
This study is the first to look at how air pollution levels relate to types of respiratory microbe in healthy people, says Mariani, who presented the work this week at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Milan. “We want to assess how this modification could impact on human health status and how it could be responsible for respiratory disease,” he says.
Analysing changes in bacteria in the airways might give us an early indicator of problems before disease develops, he adds.
Lidwien Smit at Utrecht University in the Netherlands says this is an area that deserves more attention. “You’re inhaling stuff that might cause inflammatory responses in your airways, so it’s extremely likely that the airway microbiome is a sort of mediator between pollution and respiratory effects… but this area of research is still in its infancy.”
If the air quality is improved in India as per the World Health Organization’s air standards, Indians would gain four years on average or “a combined more than 4.7 billion life years”, according to the Air Quality-Life Index (AQLI). The AQLI tool has been developed by the Energy Policy Institute at The University of Chicago (EPIC). “If the country reduced pollution to comply with its national standards, its people could live more than 1 year longer on average, or a combined more than 1.6 billion life years,” the study read.
The study also said that some of the biggest gains would be seen in Delhi and some cities. About the capital city, the study said that Delhiites could live nine years longer if it met WHO standards. For two consecutive years – 2014 and 2015 – Delhi has ranked in the list of most populated cities in the world. “Six years longer if it met the country’s own national standards,” it said.
“The people of Kolkata and Mumbai could live roughly 3.5 years longer if the country met WHO standards,” it read.
Source: AIR QUALITY-LIFE INDEX (AQLI)
The other cities with a potential considerable improvement in the average life expectancy if WHO norms are followed include (7.6 years), Agra (8.1 years), Patna (6.9 years), Bareilly (7.8 years) and Kanpur (7.2 years).
About India’s air pollution, Director of EPIC Michael Greenstone said, “High levels of air pollution are a part of people’s lives in India, just as they were in the U.S., England, Japan and other countries in the past. The last several decades have seen tremendous progress in many of these countries, but this progress did not happen by accident—it was the result of policy choices. As India navigates the dual and conflicting goals for economic growth and environmental quality, the AQLI provides a tool to make the benefits of policies to reduce air pollution concrete.”
EPIC said that it is already working with the government several state pollution control boards to implement “India’s first emissions trading program for particulate pollution”.
The study also listed some of the most polluted cities in India. NCT of Delhi (15.5 million population) tops the list in Particulate Matter Pollution with 98 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3). Ordered as per population, the other top cities are North 24 Parganas (Kolkata) with 45 micrograms per cubic metre of PM level, Mumbai Suburban with 44 micrograms per cubic metre of PM, Pune and South 24 Parganas (Kolkata) with 46, 42 PM level, respectively.
Air pollution cost Bogotá nearly $1 billion USD in 2014 in the form of premature deaths, heart disease, cancer, respiratory illness, and other complications, according to a recent study from researchers at Colombia’s Universidad La Salle.
While transportation — particularly the many exhaust-belching buses in the capital — are the most obvious cause of pollution, the study shows that general industry and business, as well as dust, erosion, and forrest fires, also contribute greatly to the problem.
Jorge Eduardo Pachón, head of the Universidad La Salle research group known as CLIMA (Centro Lasallista de Investigación y Modelación Ambiental), noted that the findings look at the result airborne impurities as well as gases, including carbon dioxide and ozone.
The investigators included these and other factors into their model design for air quality, which in addition to gauging citywide contamination levels also measures the severity of the problem in the different zones of the capital. The southwest of Bogotá, covering the neighborhoods of Bosa and Fontibón, is the hardest-hit area, according to Bogotá-based governmental agency IDEAM. (Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales).
“Air contamination is a huge risk for humans,” said Pachón. “It is different than water contamination because we get to choose to not drink it, but we have to breathe the air around us all the time. Many times we breathe air with elements that can be dangerous — not only for us but for the ecosystem, too.”
The full study was released this week at a conference for public health and air quality in the southwestern Colombian city of Cali. In addition to Pachón and his team, the Fourth Air Quality and Public Health Colombian and International Conference (CASAP), which took place from September 6-8, featured presentations and research from area experts from the Universidad de Los Andes, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana.
“These kind of results are important and they are just a bit of the whole investigation that we presented in Cali,” said Victor Marulanda, a member of CLIMA. “Hopefully this will make people aware of the issues of poor air, and we will keep on studying to find solutions and better options.”
Pachón, who is also a professor of engineering at La Salle, explained that there are two different ways to measure contamination in the air depending on the size of the particles, including dust, ashes, concrete, pollen, and even metallic elements. Those with a diameter of 10 micrometers or less are referred to as PM10, while the smaller problematic particles for humans are called PM2.5 “These particles have an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less — which means they are a hundred times smaller than a human hair,” said Pachón.
To generate their economic estimates, CLIMA used official information about air particles and gas emissions from the Bogotá Air Quality Monitoring Network (RMCAB), which is operated by Bogotá’s Environmental District Secretary. This data, along with CLIMA’s research, showed that January and February were the most contaminated months in 2014.
To better analyze the air contamination in Bogotá and help public officials understand the extent of the issue, CLIMA is working to develop low-cost instruments to measure air quality and strengthen measurement models in Colombia.
According to World Health Organization numbers from 2016, Bogotá is one of the most polluted cities in Latin America, after Santiago de Chile, San Salvador and Ciudad de México. In Colombia, Medellín and Bogotá, where air quality can be monitored by the public in real time, are the most affected cities. In March of this year, Medellín had to declare red alert for almost weeks for the high levels of particles in the air.
Exclusive: Special rapporteur’s mission finds government has violated obligation to protect people’s lives and health
The UK government is “flouting” its duty to protect the lives and health of its citizens from illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights related to toxic waste.
Baskut Tuncak issued his warning after a fact-finding mission to the UK in January at the invitation of the government in a report that has been shared exclusively with the Guardian before it is presented to the UN human rights council this week.
“Air pollution continues to plague the UK,” he said. “I am alarmed that despite repeated judicial instruction, the UK government continues to flout its duty to ensure adequate air quality and protect the rights to life and health of its citizens. It has violated its obligations.”
Such harsh international criticism will be embarrassing for the government, whose air pollution plans have already been ruled illegally poor twice. The latest plan forced by the courts was released in July but condemned as “woefully inadequate” by city leaders and “inexcusable” by doctors.
Air pollution causes an estimated 40,000 early deaths every year in Britain and was declared a “public health emergency” by MPs in 2016. Air pollution is worst overall in London, but many other places have illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide emitted by diesel vehicles, such as Leeds, Birmingham, Bournemouth and Northampton. Ipswich has higher levels of particulate matter than London.
London breached its nominal annual air pollution limits five days into 2017 at Brixton Road in south London. Other known pollution hotspots in the capital include Putney High Street in west London, Oxford Street, Kings Road in Chelsea and the Strand.
Vulnerable groups were worst affected by air pollution, he said: “Children, older persons and people with pre-existing health conditions are at grave risk of mortality, morbidity and disability, with magnified risks among the poor and minorities.”
A government spokeswoman said Brexit represented an opportunity to improve the UK’s air quality standards. “EU policies, from the common agricultural policy to vehicle emissions tests, have damaged the environment. Our £3bn air quality plan will address the dirty air caused by the EU’s failed testing regime, and in ending the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by 2040, the UK is more ambitious than most EU member states including Germany.
“We now have an opportunity to deliver a green Brexit, ensuring the UK is a global leader in environmental protection,” she said.
Anna Heslop, at ClientEarth, the lawyers who have twice defeated the government on air quality standards, said: “This damning report with regard to air pollution is unsurprising but no less shocking for that. The UK has illegal levels of air pollution and successive governments have fought us in the courts rather than tackling it effectively.
“We are glad the report says the government must listen to the experts, including its own, and develop a national network of clean air zones to keep the worst polluting vehicles out of the most polluted areas of our towns and cities. This should happen as soon as possible.”
A new, wide-ranging ClientEarth report argues the government’s claim that all EU environmental laws will be retained after Brexit is misleading. It also criticises the government over other aspects of environmental policy “loopholes” in fracking regulation; the loss of environmental staff due to austerity which has resulted in “serious governance gaps”; and the risks to environmental safety posed by Brexit.
All the UK’s environmental regulators have suffered due to budget cuts, he found: “The decreasing financial, technical and human resources due to austerity have created serious governance gaps.” The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has lost a third of its staff compared with 2007.
Another consequence of austerity was Defra’s ending in March of capital grants to local councils for cleaning up contaminated land sites, which the UN report said posed “potentially serious health risks”.
Tuncak warned that unless the UK’s future green standards equalled those of the European Union, “the UK could risk becoming a haven for ‘dirty’ industries and a dumping ground for products failing to meet EU regulations”.
The committee warned in January that Brexit could result in key environmental protections being left as ineffective “zombie legislation”. Creagh said the UN report highlighted the “government’s lack of clarity about the future of environmental issues after Brexit and how they will stop the UK from becoming a dumping ground for dirty industries and a haven for bad practice”.
Tuncak’s report also asks the UK government to “reconsider national plans to increase reliance on nuclear energy, considering that long-term storage of nuclear waste is uncertain and poses significant risks to the population”. He criticised the UK’s cuts to legal aid and protection from legal costs which make it “extremely challenging” for victims of environmental harm to seek redress in the courts.
A Dutch court on Thursday ordered the government to take immediate action to limit air pollution, as emissions in various parts of the country were in breach of European rules.
The case was brought by environmental activists, and the ruling marked their second victory in a legal campaign against what they consider the government’s wilful failure to act on pollution and climate change.
“Limits on the emissions of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide are still being violated, although they should have been restricted to the permitted levels long ago”, the District Court in The Hague said. “This the responsibility of the state.”
Caretaker Deputy Environment Minister Sharon Dijksma said the government would speed up existing plans to improve air quality in problem areas, such as city centres.
“The judge is forcing the state to better protect the health of its citizens”, spokeswoman Anne Knol of environmentalist group Milieudefensie said. “This is a major breakthrough.”
In a landmark decision in 2015, the same court ordered the government to cut carbon dioxide emissions to at least a quarter below 1990 levels by 2020. Estimates published this week showed emissions were 11 percent lower in 2016.
The health ministry has warned that current levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter emissions, mainly caused by road traffic and factories, can lead to respiratory illnesses, with chronic exposure shortening life expectancy by more than a year.
Emissions of particulate matter should have been limited six years ago, while the deadline to adhere to European rules on nitrogen dioxide was the start of 2015.
The court therefore ordered the government to take immediate measures to improve air quality and said that current plans to do so fell short of European and national regulations. It also banned the government from taking steps that would lead to further violations of European emissions rules.
Air quality has worsened rapidly across the Wasatch Front in recent days, leading state regulators to warn Utahns against prolonged exertion outdoors.
With huge wildfires burning across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Canada, the northern Utah counties of Box Elder and Cache already have more small-particulate pollution in their air than is considered healthy for the general population, according to the state’s air-quality monitors.
Salt Lake, Davis, Weber, Utah and Tooele counties have also exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for small particulates, though their air remains less smokey in general than farther north.
“As residents of the Beehive state and others across the U.S. are learning,” wrote Jon Meyer, a climatologist at the Utah Climate Center, “you don’t need to have flames in your backyard to feel the negative effects a bad wildfire season can have on our daily lives.”
Bo Call, who oversees air monitoring for the state Division of Air Quality, said Wednesday he expects conditions will continue to worsen through Friday, unless some of the fires raging to the north subside or a storm front arrives to blow the smoke elsewhere.
“The nature of particulate [pollution] is it really doesn’t go anywhere until a front comes through and blows it out,” Call said, “unlike ozone that goes up and down every day.”
Ozone levels over the Wasatch Front continue to rise and decline with daily temperatures, sometimes spiking to unhealthy levels — a trend unrelated to smoke that has continued to fluctuate all summer long.
States across the West, meanwhile, are experiencing a severe fire season. This year’s weather — a wet winter that fueled early plant growth followed by a dry summer that turned it all to tinder — has led to several large and smokey blazes, some of them record-breaking in size.
Even though air and fire-fighting experts saw the problems coming, Meyer wrote in an email, “watching it all unfold has been troubling.”
A final tally on the 2017 fire season is still pending, he wrote, “but it is certainly pushing the envelope for what many states expect or plan to occur under a ‘bad’ year.”
The Utah Department of Health guidelines last year lowered the threshold for when students should be kept indoors due to poor air quality. They recommend all students remain inside when levels of fine particulate matter, known as PM 2.5, reach 55.5 micrograms per cubic meter — enough to earn either a “red” or “purple” on the state’s air quality color scale.
Officials in Ogden School District sent out information on the bad air Wednesday to school administrators, advising them of the poor conditions and suggesting ways to limit student exposure.
Call urged residents to use common sense about activity outdoors.
People with respiratory conditions such as asthma should stay indoors as much as possible and healthy individuals should pay attention to their bodies when outside. If they can smell or taste smoke or feel it burning their eyes, he said, they are advised to remain indoors.
The haze hanging over much of the Central Valley region is expected to continue through the foreseeable future because of wildfires raging in the area and has officials warning residents of the potentially hazardous health consequences.
Three large wildfires, the Mission Fire in Madera County, the Pier Fire in Tulare County and Railroad Fire in Madera/Mariposa Counties, have prompted the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to extend the current health cautionary statement through the week.
Currently, smoke impacts are concentrated in the mountain and foothill areas of the air basin, but impacts on the Valley floor are possible until the fires are extinguished.
Overnight and early morning downslope flow may cause smoke to drift toward the San Joaquin Valley. While air quality impacts are forecast to be not as severe as over this past weekend, certain foothill and mountain areas may see unhealthy air quality with isolated pockets of smoke reaching the Valley floor.
Smoke from fires can cause serious health problems including lung disease, asthma attacks and increased risk of heart attacks and stroke. Where conditions warrant, people with heart or lung disease should follow their doctors’ advice for dealing with episodes of particulate exposure. People with existing respiratory conditions, young children and elderly people are especially susceptible to the health effects from these pollutants. Anyone being exposed to poor air quality or wildfire smoke should move inside to an air-conditioned environment.
Be advised that the District’s Real-time Air Advisory Network (RAAN) monitors are designed to detect the fine particulates (called PM2.5 which are microscopic in size and not visible to the human eye) that exist in wildfire smoke. Ash particles are much larger in size and will not be detected by the monitors. Therefore, an area may be experiencing ash impacts from these wildfires while the PM monitor reflects a moderate reading. If you can see or smell smoke or ash it is an indication that you should be treating air quality conditions as “Unhealthy” (RAAN Level 4 or higher) and remain indoors.
Residents can check the District’s wildfire page at www.valleyair.org/wildfires for information about any current wildfires and whether they are impacting the Valley. Residents can also check the nearest air monitor to their location to determine localized air-quality conditions. Visit the Real-time Air Advisory Network page on the District’s website to subscribe for free: www.valleyair.org/RAAN.
The German government will double a fund meant to help cities cut air pollution to €1 billion, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday after a meeting with city officials.
It’s part of an effort to clean up air in German cities without resorting to bans of diesel-powered cars, which could wreak havoc on the country’s important and politically powerful car industry.
“The government has agreed to increase the fund, which is financed half by the car industry and half by the government, to €1 billion,” Merkel said, adding that the extra €500 million will be drawn from the government’s current budget. Merkel added that she’ll raise possible further contributions with the industry.
Cities failing to meet pollution standards are under growing pressure from courts and environmental campaigners. With the German election on September 24, the issue has become deeply political.
The mayors and state premiers met with both Merkel, who heads the ruling Christian Democrats, and Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel from the Social Democrats.
“How do we avoid driving bans? How do we avoid that courts will force them on us — that is the big challenge,” said Winfried Kretschmann, the Green premier of Baden-Württemberg.
The car industry has agreed to update car software to reduce their emissions, but that isn’t seen as enough to deal with the pollution problem.
Gabriel said that any solution can’t rely just on tackling pollution from public transport like buses, but also has to include passenger vehicles. He also warned against placing too much hope on electric cars, and “ignoring the potential of the internal combustion engine of the future.”
Another meeting is planned for the end of October or early November to work out concrete measures, Merkel said.
Pollution Masks since 1993 - The 'Original' and still the best - Made in the UK - respro.com
THE AIR WE BREATHE
The Respro® Bulletin Board is designed to keep you up to date with current views and issues relating to Air Pollution and its health implications in our daily lives.
Respro® Masks are reusable 
Respro® Bulletin Board 