Air pollution: Toxic particles present in lungs of unborn babies

Posted on October 13, 2022 by Respro® UK Ltd

Previous research shows that exposure to certain environmental hazards, such as secondhand smoke, lead, pesticides, and air pollution, can impact the health of an unborn baby.

University researchers have discovered air pollution particles in the lungs, liver, and brain of fetuses in the womb.

The scientists believe that the particles can cross to the unborn baby through the placenta as early as the first trimester of pregnancy.

Previous research shows that specific environmental hazardsTrusted Source can impact an unborn baby.

For example, scientists link exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy to a 13% increasedTrusted Source risk of birth defects and a 23% increased risk of stillbirth.

And researchers have also found that exposure to lead, pesticides, and air pollutionTrusted Source can impact the health of a baby in the uterus.

Now a research team from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, United Kingdom, and Hasselt University in Belgium has found evidence of air pollution particles in the lungs, liver, and brain of unborn babies.

The scientists believe the particles are able to cross the placenta and enter the fetus while in the womb as early as the first trimesterTrusted Source of pregnancy.

This study recently appeared in the journal Lancet Planetary Health.

What is black carbon? 

According to the study’s joint senior author Dr. Tim Nawrot, professor of environmental epidemiology at Hasselt University, the main purpose of this research was to determine whether air pollution could reach an unborn baby.

“Previously, we found that particles could get from the maternal lungs to the placenta,” he told Medical News Today. “If they can get from lungs to blood, they are so small that they probably can reach all organs, [including] that of the next generation via gestational exposure.”

For this study, researchers focused on a type of air pollution nanoparticle called black carbon. Also known as soot particles, these black particles are the result of burning coal, diesel, and other biomass fuels.

Household energy produces little over half of all black carbon, followed by transportation accounting for about 26% of all black carbon emissions.

In addition to having an adverse effect on the environmentTrusted Source, past research also shows black carbon has a negative impact on a person’s health, being linked to cardiovascular disease, asthma, and premature death.

How pollution affects babies in the womb

For the study, the research team examined maternal-perinatal and fetal samples from Belgium and the U.K. Scientists utilized a technology called femtosecond pulsed illumination to check for the presence of black carbon in the samples.

“Before our study, nobody knew for sure whether black carbon nanoparticles actually got into the fetus itself,” Prof. Paul Fowler, chair in translational medical sciences at the University of Aberdeen and the second joint senior author of this study explained for MNT.

“We established that not only did the black carbon nanoparticles enter the placenta in the first- and second-trimester human fetus, but also got into the fetal organs, specifically the liver, lung, and brain,” he told us.

Prof. Fowler said the team was surprised at how similar black carbon nanoparticle levels in the human fetus were to those in the placenta:

“We had hoped that the fetus would be, at least at some discernible level, protected. Clearly, it is not, and this is very worrying since it likely applies to many other types of micro- and nanoparticles. Since black carbon nanoparticles are also coated with metals and organic molecules, such as other products of combustion, they are ‘trojan horsing’ these toxic compounds into fetal human organs.”

And Dr. Nawrot stated these findings show the need for rigorous air pollution standards.

“Our study was conducted in a relatively low exposure area,” he explained. “We see now already a high number of particles in such low ambient concentrations — e.g. approximately 6,000 black carbon particles per [cube millimeter of] fetal lungs or brain [tissue]. In high-exposure areas, this will be considerably higher. Healthy air should be a basic right. We need to take air pollution seriously.”

Considering additional risks

When it comes to the next steps in this research, Dr. Nawrot said the team plans to examine possible links to these findings with certain health effects.

“We know that air pollution has health effects over the life course,” he said. “It might be that prenatal exposure has long-term risks for cardiovascular and respiratory disease, but might also impact childhood cognitive functionTrusted Source.”

Prof. Fowler added they also plan to map which organs and cells black carbon particles and their accompanying molecules invade.

“This needs to be accompanied by investigation to determine whether the particles and/ or the chemicals they carry directly act within fetal human organs and cells,” he explained.

“If they [do], the question is whether the effects are likely to contribute to the poorer pregnancy outcomes experienced by pregnant women in more polluted areas. Knowing the mechanisms of action may help to better [quantify] risk, the most dangerous particles/ compounds, and design amelioration strategies,” Prof. Fowler added.

‘More questions than answers’

MNT also spoke with Dr. Danelle Fisher, a pediatrician and chair of pediatrics at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, about this study. She said that as both a pediatrician and a mother, her first reaction to the study was fear.

“What are we doing environmentally to these unborn babies that we can detect these particles in their system before they’re even born?” she asked. “That’s just so frightening.”

“And then the next question that I have […] is […] are we going to see worse disease states?” Dr. Fisher continued. “How do we deal with it? How do we treat it? Do we need to treat it?”

“I feel like this study gave me more questions than answers,” she noted, “[b]ut a good study will do that — it will encourage you to think about what the ramifications are, what we can do to make it better, and what kinds of directions we need to go in when we’re looking at future studies.”

What can pregnant women do?

Dr. Fisher said the study also caused her to think about what pregnant women could do to protect their unborn children from air pollution.

She said suggestions might be for pregnant women to wear masks when outside and consider using an air purifier in their homes.

For research next steps, Dr. Fisher stated she would like to see if scientists can detect these black carbon particles at certain times and places within the fetus as the pregnancy comes to term.

“Normally, if the body is faced with something foreign, the body has lots of mechanisms by which to get rid of whatever the bad thing is in our system,” she explained.

“So does the body naturally do that or not? Do [the particles] accumulate more by the time the child is [to] term? I’d be very curious to see if they see more of it when the babies have gone all the way to term,” she added.

Air pollution: Toxic particles present in lungs of unborn babies
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Babies have air pollution in their lungs and brains before they take their first breath

Posted on October 6, 2022 by Respro® UK Ltd

Unborn babies have air pollution particles in their developing lungs and other vital organs as early as the first trimester, new research has revealed.

Scientists at the University of Aberdeen, UK, and Hasselt University, Belgium, studied air pollution nanoparticles, called black carbon – or soot particles – to see whether these can reach the foetus.

The ground-breaking findings published in Lancet Planetary Health show that the newborn baby and its placenta are exposed to air pollution black carbon nanoparticles proportionally to the mother’s exposure.

These nanoparticles also cross the placenta into the foetus in the womb as early as the first trimester of pregnancy and get into its developing organs, including its liver, lungs, and brain.

Black carbon is a sooty black material released into the air from internal combustion engines, coal-fired power plants, and other sources that burn fossil fuel. It is a major component of particulate matter (PM), which is an air pollutant. The mechanisms by which these very small particles (nanoparticles) cause well-known health problems are poorly understood, although in part due to the chemicals they are coated with during combustion.

Previous studies by the Hasselt University team found that black carbon nanoparticles get into the placenta, but there was no solid evidence that these particles then entered the foetus.

This latest study is the first time this has been shown to occur and the team behind the study say the findings are very worrying.

Professor Tim Nawrot said: “We know that exposure to air pollution during pregnancy and infancy has been linked with still birth, preterm birth, low weight babies and disturbed brain development, with consequences persisting throughout life.”

“We show in this study that the number of black carbon particles that get into the mother are passed on proportionally to the placenta and into the baby. This means that air quality regulation should recognise this transfer during gestation and act to protect the most susceptible stages of human development.”

To answer the question of whether these particles travel from the placenta to the foetus, Professor Nawrot linked up with Professor Paul Fowler whose team studies first and second trimester human foetuses.

Professor Fowler said: “We all worried that if nanoparticles were getting into the foetus, then they might be directly affecting its development in the womb. What we have shown for the first time is that black carbon air pollution nanoparticles not only get into the first and second trimester placenta, but then also find their way into the organs of the developing fetus, including the liver and lungs.

“What is even more worrying is that these black carbon particles also get into the developing human brain. This means that it is possible for these nanoparticles to directly interact with control systems within human fetal organs and cells.”

The study authors conclude that now it is known that the developing baby in the womb is directly exposed to black carbon air pollution particles, uncovering the mechanisms involved in health risks has become even more urgent.

Babies have air pollution in their lungs and brains before they take their first breath | News | The University of Aberdeen
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Air pollution raises our risk of a stroke and its later complications

Posted on September 29, 2022 by Respro® UK Ltd

Exceeding the World Health Organization’s recommended air pollution exposure limit could substantially increase our risk of a first-time stroke

Living in a highly polluted area may raise the risk of a stroke and its subsequent complications.

Air pollution has been linked to strokes before, however, Hualiang Lin at Sun Yat-sen University in China and his colleagues wanted to understand the risk among people with no history of stroke. They were also interested in how air pollution may influence any post-stroke complications, such as cardiovascular disease.

The team assessed the air pollution exposure of more than 318,000 people living in the UK. This was based on air pollution monitoring carried out by separate researchers between January 2010 and 2011 within 100m2 of the participants’ homes.

The participants, aged 40 to 69 at the start of the research, were taking part in the UK Biobank study. They had no history of a stroke or mini-stroke – defined as a temporary disruption to the brain’s blood supply, ischemic heart disease – cardiovascular complications caused by narrowing of the heart’s arteries, or cancer.

Over an average 12-year follow-up period, 5967 of the participants had a stroke, 2985 developed cardiovascular disease and 1020 people died due to any cause.

After accounting for other factors that can influence our stroke risk, such as how active we are, every 5 microgram per cubic metre (µg/m3) increase in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) that the participants were exposed to across a year was linked to a 24 per cent rise in their risk of a stroke.

Measuring less than 2.5 microns in diameter, PM2.5 is primarily released by exhaust pipes.

The World Health Organization recommends that our annual PM2.5 exposure should not exceed 5µg/m3. In the study, the participants who had a stroke had an average annual PM2.5 exposure of 10.03µg/m3, compared with 9.97µg/m3 among those who did not have a stroke.

“PM2.5 exposure could induce systemic oxidative stress, inflammation, atherosclerosis and elevates the risk of stroke,” says Lin. It is more easily inhaled than other pollutants and can therefore cause more diseases, he says.

“These results suggest that efforts to reduce exposures may be most beneficial to primary stroke prevention,” says Lin.

Among the participants who had a stroke, every 5µg/m3 increase to their annual nitrogen dioxide exposure was linked to a 4 per cent rise in their risk of cardiovascular disease post-stroke. A statistical analysis suggests this was not a chance finding. Nitrogen dioxide is primarily released from burning fuel.

While PM2.5 and nitrogen dioxide exposure were linked to a heightened risk of a stroke itself and subsequent cardiovascular disease, respectively, neither increased the odds of a stroke-related death.

“This study elegantly confirms the increased risk of stroke due to air pollution in the UK Biobank population study, but interestingly suggests that the impact of air pollution may continue to adversely impact cardiovascular health even after the stroke occurred,” says Steffen Petersen at Queen Mary University of London, UK.

“On a personal level, everyone, including stroke patients, may wish to consider personal measures to reduce exposure to air pollution, such as avoiding walking along polluted streets and rather take a less polluted route away from the main roads.”

Journal reference: Neurology, DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000201316

Air pollution raises our risk of a stroke and its later complications | New Scientist
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Anthropogenic air pollution more significant than desert dust: In the Middle East, more than 90 percent of the fine aerosol particles that are detrimental to health and the climate originate from human-made sources

Posted on September 27, 2022 by Respro® UK Ltd

In the Middle East, more than 90 percent of the fine aerosol particles that are detrimental to health and the climate originate from human-made sources

At the beginning of the year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that the Middle East ranks among the regions with the worst air quality. There is a common misconception that desert dust is the most significant cause of air pollution from particulate matter in this region, but a new study has shown that more than 90 percent of the particulate matter that is detrimental to health originates from anthropogenic sources. This human-made fine particulate matter differs from the less harmful desert dust particles. Scientists determined this through ship born measurements and verified it in elaborate modeling calculations. The anthropogenic particles are primarily caused by the production and use of fossil fuels such as oil and gas. They are generally smaller than desert dust and can penetrate deep into the lungs.

In 2017, an international team headed by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry travelled around the Arabian Peninsula on a research vessel in a spectacular expedition. Various measuring instruments were kept on board to sample aerosol particles and trace gases such as ozone and nitric oxides. The researchers also discovered that the Suez Canal, the northern Red Sea and especially the Arabian Gulf are regional hotspots for ozone; the exceptionally strong concentration of ozone in these areas indicates that the harmful gas is also a problem in other densely populated regions of the Arabian Peninsula. Furthermore, the scientists found that concentrations of nitrogen oxides were significantly higher than the WHO guidelines.

“There are relatively few measurements from the region around the Arabian Peninsula and in the Middle East in general. That is why this research campaign is so important,” says Sergey Osipov, an atmospheric physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. “We used the data in atmospheric chemistry models in order to draw conclusions about general air quality and health consequences.”

Air pollution in the Middle East leads to high mortality rates

“The thresholds for particulate matter are constantly exceeded in the region, which is home to 400 million people,” says Jos Lelieveld, director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and project leader. “While the measurements have been performed several years ago, looking into the data more closely with new atmospheric modeling tools surprisingly showed that the health hazardous fraction of the pollution particles is almost exclusively human-made.” In addition to numerous researchers from Mainz, scientists from Kuwait, the Cyprus Institute, as well as from Saudi Arabia, France and the USA were also involved in the project. “The extreme air pollution results in an annual excess mortality rate of 745 people per 100,000. It has similar significance to other leading health risk factors, such as high cholesterol and tobacco smoking, and is also comparable to the mortality rate of COVID-19,” adds the atmospheric scientist, who is also a professor at the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia. Given that anthropogenic air pollution is a key factor in climate change in the Middle East as well, measures to reduce emissions are all the more important, he said.

Story Source:Materials provided by Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Anthropogenic air pollution more significant than desert dust: In the Middle East, more than 90 percent of the fine aerosol particles that are detrimental to health and the climate originate from human-made sources — ScienceDaily
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‘Dramatic’ rise in wildfire smoke triggers decline in US air quality for millions

Posted on September 23, 2022 by Respro® UK Ltd

Recent record fire seasons in the west have increased pollution across the country, affecting people’s health, scientists say

Millions of Americans are now routinely exposed to unhealthy plumes of wildfire smoke that can waft thousands of miles across the country, scientists have warned.

Wildfires cause soot and ash to be thrown off into the air, which then carries the minuscule particles that can be inhaled by people many miles away, aggravating a variety of health conditions. The number of people in the US exposed to unhealthy levels of these particulates from wildfires at least one day a year has increased 27-fold over the last decade, a new study found, with 25 million people in 2020 alone breathing in potentially toxic air from fires.

Pockets of deeply unhealthy air have emerged mainly in the US west, the staging ground for wildfires of increasing intensity that have been fueled by years of fire suppression and global heating, priming forests to burn. Six of the seven largest wildfires in California’s recorded history have occurred since 2020.

Wildfire smoke can result in the closure of schools, the postponement of flights and even cause cycling races and Pearl Jam concerts to be canceled. But its most pervasive impact is a regression in air quality barely seen since the advent of the Clean Air Act in 1970, which helped lift dangerous, choking smog conditions from many polluted US cities.“

We are seeing the undoing of a lot of that clean air progress, especially in the west,” said Marshall Burke, a scientist at Stanford University and co-author of the study published in Environmental Science and Technology.

“There’s been really dramatic increases in wildfire smoke as air pollution, in some places fully reversing the impact of the Clean Air Act. It’s been remarkably quick. Our air pollution regulations are not designed to deal with this. It’s a worrying problem.”

The new study is based on a model that calculates how wildfire smoke has raised background pollution levels in locations across the US. It measures the presence of PM2.5, tiny particles about one-thirtieth of the width of a human hair that can travel through the air and bury themselves deep in the lungs of people when inhaled.

Wildfire smoke has added about five micrograms of these particles to locations in the US west, on average, which is a sizable increase from national levels, which are about 10 micrograms from other sources of particulate pollution, such as the emissions from cars, trucks and power plants.

Unlike these other sources, which are regulated by government, wildfire smoke is less predictable, reaches farther and is more egalitarian in whom it affects – the wealthy and white as well as poor people of color who are disproportionately exposed to pollution from nearby highways and factories.

“Wildfires produce an amazing amount of particulates that can travel thousands of miles, unlike other pollution,” said Burke. Last summer, New York experienced some of the worst air quality in the world due to smoke from wildfires several thousand miles away on the west coast of the US.

A decade ago, fewer than 500,000 people in the US were exposed to any days of an air quality index of 100 or above due to smoke, a level that is deemed unhealthy. Now, Burke said, 5 million Americans are living in areas with such levels at least one day a year.

“If you don’t live near a highway or power plant your air quality is likely to be fairly good, but incursion from wildfire smoke is changing that and there’s evidence this will increase,” he said. “Honestly, it was surprising to see how quickly these extreme exposures have gone up.”

The dangers posed by wildfire smoke are of increasing concern for experts in various places around the world – a summer of intense wildfires in Spain, France and Portugal has resulted in Europe’s highest wildfire emissions in 15 years. The probability of catastrophic wildfire events around the globe will increase by 30% by the end of the century even if planet-heating gases are rapidly cut, according to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

“As the globe warms, wildfires and associated air pollution are expected to increase, even under a low emissions scenario. In addition to human health impacts, this will also affect ecosystems as air pollutants settle from the atmosphere to Earth’s surface,” said Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization.

“We have seen this in the heatwaves in Europe and China this year when stable high atmospheric conditions, sunlight and low wind speeds were conducive to high pollution levels.”

Research has linked wildfire smoke to the worsening of several conditions. Fierce wildfires in California in 2020 caused people to inhale smoke that raised their risk of heart attacks by up to 70%, a study found, with the smoke causing an estimated 3,000 deaths in people older than 65.

A separate study published in May found that people living within 50km (31 miles) of wildfires over the past decade had a 10% higher incidence of brain tumors and a 5% higher chance of developing lung cancer compared with people living farther away.

Breathing in wildfire smoke while pregnant, meanwhile, raises the risk of premature birth and even worsens outcomes for people who contract Covid-19. Francesca Dominici, a Harvard University professor who led the research on the link between wildfire smoke and Covid, said Burke’s new study is “well validated” and an “exciting area of research”.

“The results are interesting and concerning,” Dominici said, adding that there is “emergent evidence” that PM2.5 from smoke is more toxic than particles from other sources.

George Thurston, an environmental health scientist at the NYU School of Medicine, said that there is still more to be learned about the impact of wildfire smoke, with some research suggesting fossil fuel combustion is in fact more harmful, but that the new study is an “important addition” to the estimates of exposure of wildfire smoke.

“We need studies like this to assess how big a risk this is, because the Environmental Protection Agency exempts these fires from air quality standards,” Thurston said. “This sort of work helps us to work out if new standards are required.”

Burke said the threat of smoke became obvious to many in California in 2020 when the skies over the San Francisco Bay Area turned orange. Some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the world have suffered from poor indoor air quality due to smoke, alleviated only by air filtration.

“The sun never came up in the Bay Area, which really brought home this is a different era we are living in,” Burke said. “We naively thought we were safe in our homes but the health guidance is inadequate. In my own home I closed all the windows and doors and yet I got a monitor and found the indoor air quality was appalling.”

Drastic cuts to greenhouse gases, better forest management where fuels are thinned or burned away in a controlled manner and improved guidance to households will all be required to improve the situation, Burke said. “We shouldn’t think about wildfires just in terms of numbers of homes burned down but also how many people have been exposed to pollution, because there are huge impacts that we just aren’t thinking about,” he said.

‘Dramatic’ rise in wildfire smoke triggers decline in US air quality for millions | Air pollution | The Guardian
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Air pollution increases hospital admission risk for autistic children, study suggests

Posted on September 21, 2022 by Respro® UK Ltd

Research shows hospital admissions are linked to even short-term exposure, with boys more at risk than girls

Autistic children face an increased risk of hospitalisation if exposed to air pollution for relatively brief periods, with boys more at risk than girls, new research suggests.

Admissions for issues such as hyperactivity, aggression or self-injury may be prevented by minimising their exposure, and cutting air pollution levels could lower the risks, the researchers behind the study concluded. The findings were published in the journal BMJ Open.

“Short-term exposure [to air pollution] was associated with a higher risk of hospital admissions for autism spectrum disorder,” the researchers wrote. “The associations were demonstrated to be more prominent among boys than among girls in sex-stratified analyses.”

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a range of symptoms and severity. It is often accompanied by neuroinflammation and systemic inflammation meaning drugs, supplements and diet can improve the core symptoms, according to the report in the BMJ Open.

It is believed that exposure to air pollution in the short-term, over several days or weeks for instance, can induce systemic inflammation and neuroinflammation, potentially increasing the risk of hospital admission in autistic people.

But previous studies have focused on the association between long-term exposure to air pollution over years during pregnancy and the early postnatal period, and ASD development among children.

The researchers sought to find out if short-term exposure may also pose a risk of aggravating ASD symptoms among school-age children. A child’s developing nervous system is more susceptible to environmental exposures than an adult’s, the report said.

Globally, one in 100 children are autistic, according to the World Health Organization.

Researchers from the Institute of public health and medical care at Seoul National university hospital drew on official government data on daily hospital admissions for autism among children aged five to 14 between 2011 and 2015.

They also collected data on national daily levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3) in each of the 16 regions in the Republic of Korea.

Analysis of the data revealed that short-term exposure to PM2.5, NO2 and O3 was associated with a heightened risk of hospital admission for autism, and that boys were at greater risk than girls.

The researchers acknowledged limitations to the study and called for further research in the area.

“This study suggests that short-term exposure to air pollution affects ASD symptom aggravation, which is more prominent among boys than among girls,” the researchers concluded. “Air pollution mixtures were also found to be associated with ASD symptom aggravation, mostly driven by PM2.5 and NO2.

“These results emphasise that reduction of air pollution exposure needs to be considered for successful ASD symptom management, which is important with regard to quality of life and economic costs.

“Because this is the first study on this subject, further studies, especially studies directly investigating ASD symptoms in more detail, are warranted to confirm the results and draw policy implications.”

Air pollution increases hospital admission risk for autistic children, study suggests | Health | The Guardian
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Air pollution increases dementia risk, says leading expert

Posted on September 16, 2022 by Respro® UK Ltd

Air pollution has emerged as a small but important risk factor for dementia and cognitive decline, experts say – and Australia probably has a false sense of security about how clean our air is.

One of Australia’s leading dementia epidemiologists says she would no longer live on a busy road after watching the science linking air pollution and dementia strengthen over the past two decades.

She’s even come to worry about cyclists pedalling along the side of highways.

“All the observational studies keep showing a cognitive decline is associated with high levels of air pollution,” says Professor Kaarin Anstey, director of the University of NSW Ageing Futures Institute and senior principal research scientist at Neuroscience Research Australia. “There has been study after study.”

In the early 2000s, researchers in heavily polluted Mexico City discovered an association between children living in more polluted areas and inflammation of the brain.

Subsequent studies have shown a small but consistent association with neurodegeneration in children and adults across small neighbourhoods and large countries.

But conclusively proving one caused the other is very difficult.

The most compelling evidence emerged in February, when a Chinese study showed people living in provinces with policies to cut air pollution had less cognitive decline over four years than people living in provinces without such policies.

One in eight Australians aged between 80 and 84 has dementia. Large reviews now suggest exposure to high levels of air pollution increases the risk of dementia by about 10 per cent. That’s behind other risks such as obesity, smoking, diabetes or depression, but far more people are exposed.

Health authorities are taking aggressive steps to deal with other risks, but air pollution seems to be largely ignored, says Professor Hui Chen, who is studying the effect of air pollution on fetal development for the University of Technology Sydney.

“The evidence is quite strong,” she says. “It is a silent killer of our brain. People don’t really realise this is in the air.”

Chen is talking about PM2.5 – a catch-all measure of particles 30 times smaller than a human hair.

That’s small enough to get through the lungs and into the blood, “and then pretty much go everywhere”, she says.

PM2.5 particles have been linked to increased blood pressure and stroke risk, which can indirectly cause dementia. But like any foreign particle, they can also trigger an inflammatory immune response.

“And we know inflammatory responses can impact on the start and progression of neurodegeneration,” says Professor Kevin Barnham, head of the neurotherapeutics lab at the Florey Institute.

Barnham points to rates of Parkinson disease, which increased by 22 per cent between 1990 and 2016 – from 2.75 deaths per 100,000 to 4.69 – even after accounting for the ageing of the population.

“The rise in incidence of Parkinson’s disease has been described as a pandemic,” he says. “The only thing we can pin it down to is environmental exposure.”

Professor Bryce Vissel, head of the Centre for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, says it is “absolutely clear” that particulate matter gets into and deposits in the brain.

“And [the particles] are clearly from engines,” Vissel says. “They are found in amyloid deposits. In mice exposed to polluted air collected from busy roads, they show biological changes relevant to brain damage.”

Studies overseas have shown women living in polluted areas bear children who perform less well at school and Professor Chen has been trying to find out if that is happening here as well.

“No one was doing these studies in Australia because they thought our air quality was so good,” she says. “But now they know it is a problem.“

Official air-quality sensors are designed to measure background air quality so can overstate how good Australia’s air is in locations where people spend lots of time, such as along roads. Monitors are typically placed in parks away from roads where they can pick up large-scale pollution events, such as haze from bushfires.

“They are not measuring often elevated levels of pollution in locations where many people in cities spend time, particularly near roads,” says the University of Wollongong’s Dr Hugh Forehead.

He led a project fitting air-quality sensors around streets in western Sydney that found PM2.5 measures were 10 times higher there than at official monitoring stations.

This may leave us with a false sense of security that our air is cleaner than it is, says Associate Professor Anthony White.

He heads a team looking at neurodegeneration at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. In lab studies, they have shown that bushfire smoke – of the type that blanketed Sydney for weeks in 2019 – is especially toxic to brain cells.

As the climate crisis increases our bushfire risk, this will become a bigger problem.

“It’s a fairly small magnitude of risk,” he says. “But there are a lots of things that add risk to dementia, and if you combine them all that adds up over a lifetime.

Air pollution increases dementia risk, says leading expert
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Healthy teenagers at risk of irregular heartbeats from air pollution, says study

Posted on September 15, 2022 by Respro® UK Ltd

Concern as heart arrhythmias appear to be triggered even when air pollution within quality limits

Healthy teenagers are more prone to irregular heartbeats after breathing in fine particulate air pollution, according to the first major study of its impact on otherwise healthy young individuals.

The findings have raised concern among researchers because heart arrhythmias, which can increase the risk of heart disease and sudden cardiac death, appear to be triggered even when air pollution is within common air quality limits.

Doctors monitored heart activity and the air breathed by more than 300 healthy US teenagers over 24-hour periods. They found that higher concentrations of fine particles called PM2.5s increased the risk of irregular heartbeats for the next two hours. Similar effects have been found in older adults before.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that reports the association between PM2.5 air pollution and cardiac arrhythmias among otherwise healthy adolescents,” the researchers write in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Vehicle exhausts and combustion in the manufacturing and construction industries are a major source of PM2.5s, or particles smaller than 2.5 microns. Once inhaled, they can reach deep into the lungs and even the blood vessels where they cause inflammation that drives disease.

Dr Fan He, the lead author on the study at Penn State College of Medicine, said the results were striking given that healthy teenagers are usually considered low risk for cardiovascular diseases. “Our findings suggest air pollution could trigger arrhythmias and contribute to sudden cardiac death among youth, which are devastating events for their families and larger communities,” he told the Guardian.

The researchers examined the impact of particulate air pollution on 322 healthy teenagers about seven years after they enrolled, aged six to 12 years old, in the Penn State Child Cohort study. The participants were given heart monitors and mobile air sampling kits to carry around for 24 hours, regardless of whether they were indoors or outside, sedentary or active.

The monitors captured two types of arrhythmia that can make people feel their heart has skipped a beat. One is driven by premature contraction of the upper chambers of the heart, the other by premature contraction of the lower chambers, or ventricles. While they are rarely treated unless they cause symptoms, premature ventricular contractions can raise the risk of heart attacks, stroke, heart failure and sudden cardiac death later in life.

According to the report, the risk of premature ventricular contractions within two hours of exposure increased by 5% for every 10 micrograms per cubic metre increase in PM2.5. Dr He said it was “alarming” the effect was seen even at an average daily PM2.5 level of 17 micrograms per cubic metre. In the UK, an average daily level of 35 micrograms per cubic metre is considered low-level pollution.

On days of high air pollution in England, hundreds more people are rushed into hospital for emergency care after suffering cardiac arrests, strokes and asthma attacks. But particulate air pollution also drives up rates of lung cancer, by awakening dormant mutations that trigger the growth of tumours. In 2020, the British Heart Foundation estimated more than 160,000 people could die in the coming decade from strokes and heart attacks linked to air pollution.

He said better air quality standards would improve heart health in the general population and reduce the burden of other chronic conditions such cancer and lung disease. But in the absence of any improvement in air quality, he suggested people take precautions, especially when pollution is at its worst.

“Wearing face masks and avoiding vigorous physical activities on highly polluted days and during rush-hours reduce the amount of air pollution exposure and minimise the associated health risks,” he said.

via https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/14/healthy-teenagers-risk-irregular-heartbeats-air-pollution-study

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