Air Pollution Linked To Other Cancers, Not Just Lung 

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Long-term exposure to ambient fine particulate matter such as PM2.5 has been linked to increased risk of mortality for a range of cancers.

Researchers in Hong Kong have found that long-term exposure to ambient fine particulate matter is associated with increased risk of mortality from many types of cancer in an elderly Hong Kong population. Findings of the study, led by a team from the University of Hong Kong, were published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

The present territory-wide study involved local elderly that were followed up for thirteen years. The team of scientists analyzed the risk of mortality from cancers and exposure to ambient fine particulate matter—that is, particles with an aerodynamic diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, or PM2.5—on almost 67,000 persons aged 65 or above. Particulate matter are particles found in the air, including hydrocarbons and heavy metals produced by transportation and power generation, among other sources.

The population studied was enrolled in the Elderly Health Services Cohort of the Department of Health from 1998 to 2001 and subsequently followed up until 2011. Causes of death were determined based on Hong Kong’s death registry. Annual concentrations of PM2.5 at their residential addresses were estimated using PM2.5 concentrations measured at fixed-site monitors, horizontal-vertical locations, and satellite data.

After adjusting for the factor of smoking, the study showed that the risk of dying from any cancer rose by 22 percent; by 42 percent from cancer in the upper digestive tract; and by 35 percent from accessory digestive organs, which include the liver, bile ducts, gall bladder and pancreas, for every 10 µg/m3 increase in PM2.5.

The rate of increase in PM2.5 was also associated with an 80 percent increased risk of mortality from breast cancer for women, and a 36 percent increased risk of dying of lung cancer for men.

“The study findings are of public health importance, particularly in Asia where air quality is poor and that local data on the long-term health effects of PM2.5 to support policy on air quality management is scarce,” said lead researcher of this study, Honorary Associate Professor Wong Chit-ming.

“Long-term exposure to particulate matter has been associated with mortality mainly from cardiopulmonary causes and lung cancer, but there have been few studies showing an association with mortality from other cancers. We suspected that these particulates could have an equivalent effect on cancers elsewhere in the body,” added co-lead author, scientific officer Dr. Thach Thuan-quoc.

Thach indicated that some possible explanations for the association between PM2.5 and cancer could include defects in DNA repair function, alterations in the body’s immune response, or inflammation that triggers angiogenesis, or the growth of new blood vessels that allows tumors to spread. In the case of the digestive organs, heavy metal pollution could affect gut microbiota and influence the development of cancer, Thach added.

“Further research would be required to determine whether other countries experience similar associations between PM2.5 and cancer deaths, but this study combined with existing research suggests that other urban populations may carry the same risks,” the team said.

“The implications for other similar cities around the world are that PM2.5 must be reduced as much and as fast as possible. Air pollution remains a clear, modifiable public health concern.”

One limitation of the study is that it focused solely on PM2.5. Thach said that emerging research is beginning to study the effects of exposure to multiple pollutants on human health. He also cautioned that pollution is just one risk factor for cancer, and others, such as diet and exercise, may be more significant and more modifiable risk factors.

Source: Air Pollution Linked To Other Cancers, Not Just Lung | Asian Scientist Magazine | Science, Technology and Medicine News Updates From Asia

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Air pollution rising at an ‘alarming rate’ in world’s cities 

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Outdoor pollution has risen 8% in five years with fast-growing cities in the developing world worst affected, WHO data shows

Outdoor air pollution has grown 8% globally in the past five years, with billions of people around the world now exposed to dangerous air, according to new data from more than 3,000 cities compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

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While all regions are affected, fast-growing cities in the Middle East, south-east Asia and the western Pacific are the most impacted with many showing pollution levels at five to 10 times above WHO recommended levels.

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According to the new WHO database, levels of ultra-fine particles of less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5s) are highest in India, which has 16 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities.

China, which has been plagued by air pollution, has improved its air quality since 2011 and now has only five cities in the top 30. Nine other countries, including Pakistan and Iran, have one city each in the worst 30.

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For the larger, but slightly less dangerous PM10 particles, India has eight cities in the world’s top 30. Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan each have two cities in the top 10. The true figure for the growth in global air pollution is likely to be worse because only a handful of African cities monitor their levels.

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The most polluted city in the world, according to the WHO data, is Onitsha, a fast-growing port and transit city in south-eastern Nigeria that recorded levels of nearly 600 micrograms per cubic metre of PM10s – around 20 times the WHO recommended level.

Air pollution levels were generally much lower for cities in developed countries with Sydney, New York and London registering 17, 16 and 22 micrograms per cubic metre for PM10s respectively. However, the data only includes measurements for particulates and does not include forms of air pollution such as NO2 and ozone.

“We have a public health emergency in many countries. Urban air pollution continues to rise at an alarming rate, wreaking havoc on human health. It’s dramatic, one of the biggest problems we are facing globally, with terrible future costs to society,” said Dr Maria Neira, director of public health at the WHO in Geneva.

“The cost for countries is enormous. Air pollution affects economies and people’s quality of life. It leads to major chronic diseases and to people ultimately dying,” she said.

The new data, drawn from city and academic records, shows a rapid deterioration in air quality as low-income cities grow unchecked and populations become unable to escape clouds of smog and soot from transport, industry, construction sites, farming and wood-burning in homes.

Outdoor air pollution causes more than 3m deaths a year – more than malaria and HIV/Aids – and is now the biggest single killer in the world. The toll is expected to double as urban populations increase and car numbers approach 2bn by 2050.

Air pollutants such as sulphates, nitrates and black carbon penetrate deep into the lungs and into the cardiovascular system, posing the greatest risks to human health, says the UN.

“As urban air quality declines, the risk of stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma, increases for the people who live in them. When dirty air blankets our cities the most vulnerable urban populations – the youngest, oldest and poorest – are the most impacted,” said Flavia Bustreo, WHO assistant director general.

Encouragingly, there is evidence from the WHO data that many cities are addressing air pollution. More than half of the monitored cities in high-income countries and more than one-third of those in low- and middle-income countries reduced their air pollution levels by more than 5% in five years. Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world, has banned large diesel cars from going into the city centre.

Measures taken by cities include reducing industrial smokestack emissions, increasing the use of renewable power sources like solar and wind, and prioritising rapid transit, walking and cycling networks in cities. Many cities are also committed to reducing reducing car traffic and diesel vehicles in particular.

The UN’s third outdoor air pollution database suggests the cleanest cities in the world are generally small, wealthy and situated far from industrial centres. Muonio in Finland, a town above the Arctic circle, has the world’s purest recorded urban air, recording just 2 micrograms per cubic metre of PM2.5 pollution and 4 micrograms per cubic metre of PM10s. It is closely followed by Norman Wells in Canada, Campisábalos in Spain and Converse County, Wyoming in the US.

Of 52 UK towns and cities included in the UN database, Port Talbot in south Wales, a hub for the UK steel industry, is the most polluted, ahead of London, Glasgow, Southampton and Leeds. The cleanest UK city in the WHO list is Inverness, followed by Bournemouth, Newcastle and Sunderland.

The most polluted city in Australia, according to the data, is Geraldton, a major seaport on the west coast, north of Perth. The most polluted city in the United States is the inland city of Visalia-Porterville in California.

“More than 80% of people living in urban areas that monitor air pollution are exposed to air quality levels that exceed the World Health Organisation limits. While all regions of the world are affected, populations in low-income cities are the most impacted; 98% of cities in low- and middle income countries with more than 100,000 inhabitants do not meet WHO air quality guidelines. However, in high income countries, that percentage decreases to 56%,” said the WHO.

“It is crucial for city and national governments to make urban air quality a health and development priority,” said Dr Carlos Dora, co-ordinator of the WHO’s Interventions for Healthy Environment programme. “When air quality improves, health costs from air pollution related diseases shrink, worker productivity expands and life expectancy grows. Reducing air pollution also brings an added climate bonus, which can become a part of countries’ commitments to the climate treaty.”

Source: Air pollution rising at an ‘alarming rate’ in world’s cities | Environment | The Guardian

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Dutch air quality breaks EU standards in some cities

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

The air quality in parts of Amsterdam, Maastricht and Rotterdam breaks EU standards, exposing the population to dangerous levels of pollution, environmental group Milieudefensie said on Tuesday.

The Netherlands has been required to meet EU rules on the concentration of nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere since January 2015 but fails to do this in at least 11 places, Milieudefensie said.

‘This is extremely damaging because the European standards themselves are too weak to really protect health,’ campaigner Anne Knol told Radio 1 news.

The Stadhouderskade and Valkenburgerstraat in Amsterdam, Parallelweg in Maastricht and Coolsingel in Rotterdam are among the places where NO2 exceeds the 40 microgram level.

In Utrecht, the Milieudefensie tests found no breaches of the EU limit. Utrecht introduced a city centre ban for old diesel cars last January.

Air pollution is the third biggest cause of death in the Netherlands, following smoking and obesity, Knol said.

Source: Dutch air quality breaks EU standards in some cities – DutchNews.nl

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No new registration of diesel cabs in Delhi: Supreme Court 

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

The apex court allowed existing All India Tourist Permit (AITP) diesel taxis to operate in the national capital till the expiry of their permit, which is issued for a period of five years, and said no renewal of the same would be done.

The Supreme Court Tuesday relaxed its ban on diesel taxis in Delhi-NCR, allowing them to ply till their permits expire. But the bench, led by Chief Justice T S Thakur, said the Delhi government will not register any new diesel taxis, and that registration of all city taxis shall be permitted only if the vehicles operate on dual-fuel (CNG/petrol) or purely CNG or petrol.

The bench also underlined that diesel taxis will eventually have to go off the roads.

The Delhi government, the bench said, should work out adequate norms on safety, security and fares for taxis. “Safety and security is an important aspect…you must have seen some of the recent incidents. So, now you make sure these concerns are taken care of,” the bench, also comprising Justice A K Sikri and Justice R Banumathi, told the Delhi government’s counsel.

The court order is likely to free up more than 60,000 taxis, which had to go off roads since they had not switched to CNG. Further, the court-mandated stipulation regarding fare compliance with government norms may affect ‘surge pricing’ used by taxi aggregators, which the Delhi government had sought to stop during odd-even phase 2.

The bench provided relief to taxi operators after modifying its April 30-deadline, which had put in place a complete prohibition on plying of diesel taxis. On Tuesday, the court clarified that the extension till the expiry of their permits was only a one-time measure aimed at giving operators some respite.

“You must understand what we are trying to do here. There has to be a gradual phase-out…diesel taxis will have to go,” observed the bench.

It added that existing all India tourist permit (AITP) taxis will also be allowed in Delhi-NCR for point-to-point services so that BPO firms could use their services. The reprieve was granted after IT industry body National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) assured the bench that all its future contracts would ensure services of only non-diesel cabs.

Amicus curiae Harish Salve had supported a joint plea by the central and Delhi governments to relax the ban and permit a gradual phase-out of diesel taxis in the wake of inconvenience to the public and to enable the BPO industry, which relies heavily on these taxis to ferry employees, to function smoothly.

Salve also suggested that the Centre should issue norms for regulating taxis with all India permits and decide a way forward for non-diesel cabs. But Solicitor general Ranjit Kumar argued that NCR-specific rules would be difficult to formulate, as AITP rules were meant for the whole country. The bench said it would now hear in July the issues relating to levying a green cess on diesel vehicles and other measures to reduce pollution.

Source: No new registration of diesel cabs in Delhi: Supreme Court | The Indian Express

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UK government accused of pursuing ‘gimmicks’ to tackle air pollution 

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Green lawyers criticise government after it emerged experts were commissioned to explore whether high-tech paint could reduce NO2 levels

Lawyers have accused the government of pursuing gimmicks to tackle illegal air pollution, after it emerged experts were asked to examine whether high-tech paint could fix the problem.

After losing a legal battle over pollution in the supreme court last year, the environment department last year announced plans for five clean air zones which will not affect nine in 10 vehicles.

But in their search for solutions, officials also commissioned a study by scientists into whether a type of paint could effectively reduce nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a toxic gas produced by diesel vehicles linked to thousands of premature deaths in London alone each year.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it was unable to provide a figure for the cost of the study because the group that produced it is paid an annual fee for a series of reports.

When exposed to sunlight, titanium dioxide in the paint converts NO2 to a nitrate bound to the surface, which can then be washed off. But the report by the Air Quality Expert Group concluded that the paint would not make a dent in the UK’s pollution problem.

“Taken as a whole, there is little current evidence to suggest the widespread use of photocatalytic surfaces will reduce ambient concentrations of NO2,” the team of experts from King’s College London, University of York and the University of Leeds found after analysing field trials.

The problem, they said, was that the volumes of air that would make contact with the surfaces was not enough to have a significant impact on NO2 levels, which are in breach of European limits in dozens of cities including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff and Edinburgh.

Even worse, using such paint could have unwanted side effects. “Furthermore, there is a risk that these materials will result in the production of other undesirable species such as nitrous acid and formaldehyde, which can have wider impacts on atmospheric chemistry as well as adverse health impacts,” the authors wrote in the report, which was quietly published in April.

Such an approach was much harder than tackling emissions at the tailpipe, they said. “Compared with emissions source control, reducing emissions once diluted in the atmosphere is challenging.”

Alan Andrews, a lawyer at ClientEarth, which won the supreme court case and is taking the government to court again, said: “Research should be focused on cutting air pollution at source, not on gimmicks which seek to treat the symptoms but not the causes of Britain’s air pollution crisis. The government is desperately trying to avoid tackling dirty diesel vehicles, which is why we’re taking them back to court over their failure to clean up our air.”

MPs, green groups and thinktanks have proposed a range of measures to tackle “public health emergency” of air pollution, including a scrappage scheme for diesel cars, more clean air zones and greener public transport. Paint has not featured in the debate so far.

A Defra spokeswoman said the government was not looking at pursuing paint as part of its air quality plans. “The point of the report was to give us a better understanding of all available options to reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) [which include NO2],” a spokeswoman said.

Parts of the UK are forecast to suffer moderate air pollution this week, although it is expected to largely clear by Friday.

Source: UK government accused of pursuing ‘gimmicks’ to tackle air pollution | Environment | The Guardian

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Europe’s problem with diesel cars 

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

New UK government tests confirm that diesel cars produce a lot more air pollution in real-world driving when compared with the legal tests. Those sold since 2009 emitted six times more nitrogen oxides, on average.

Compared with the stricter standards applied to petrol cars, the average diesel sold between 2009 and 2015 emitted 19 times more nitrogen oxides.

In 2014, more than half of new cars in Europe were diesel, so solving our air pollution problems will not be easy. The Airuse project highlighted the role of taxation in car buying choice. All European countries, except the UK, have lower tax on diesel fuel compared with petrol.

Unsurprisingly, diesel tends to dominate car sales in countries where the fuel is most favoured by taxation: Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, France and Greece – where the ending of a ban on diesel cars in Athens and Thessaloniki in 2011 led to a boom in sales. India recently removed subsidies on diesel, but there is no sign of an end to the European tax incentives.

Airuse also highlighted how the geography of the Mediterranean affects its air pollution, with shipping, dry dusty soils and dense city centres adding to the problems from a high proportion of diesel cars. The UK and other countries surrounding the North Sea and the Channel form one of Europe’s most densely populated areas.

It also contains Europe’s only two mega-cities – London and Paris – which are separated by less than 350km. This makes action on traffic pollution the key to cleaning the air over our region.

Source: Europe’s problem with diesel cars | Environment | The Guardian

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Smoke prompts air pollution health advisory for Northeastern Minnesota 

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

Thick smoke and haze in the Northland — from wildfires both in the region and far to the north and west in Canada — has prompted the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to issue an air pollution health advisory for Northeastern Minnesota through 10 p.m. Saturday.

The advisory includes Duluth, the Iron Range and the North Shore. The smoky haze continued to move across the Northland on Saturday morning.

“Periods of smoke … are expected to persist in this area through Saturday night,” the MPCA reported. “During this time, fine particle pollution is expected to remain near a level that is considered unhealthy for sensitive groups. On Saturday night into Sunday morning, the winds will decrease the movement of smoke into the affected region.”

The MPCA said populations sensitive to fine particles include “those with pre-existing cardiovascular or respiratory disease, the elderly, children, and individuals who participate in activities requiring extended or heavy exertion, both indoors and outdoors.”

People in those groups are encouraged to postpone or reduce vigorous activity, and minimize exposure to air pollution.

Source: Smoke prompts air pollution health advisory for Northeastern Minnesota | Duluth News Tribune

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Measuring the airborne toxicants urban bicyclists inhale 

Posted on May 7, 2016 by Respro® UK Ltd

By switching from four wheels to two, bicyclists help reduce traffic and air pollution — all while getting much-needed exercise. But that health benefit could be costly, due to exposure to potentially harmful compounds in motor vehicle exhaust. In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers analyzed breath samples to find out how much of these compounds are absorbed by the body.

By switching from four wheels to two, bicyclists help reduce traffic and air pollution — all while getting much-needed exercise. But that health benefit could be costly, due to exposure to potentially harmful compounds in motor vehicle exhaust. In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers analyzed breath samples to find out how much of these compounds are absorbed by the body. They report their findings in ACS’Environmental Science & Technology.

Previous reports have suggested that cycling in more rural areas and on off-street paths can reduce exposure to traffic-related toxicants. Absorption of compounds in the body — which can lead to deleterious health effects — is not always directly proportional to exposure, say this study’s researchers. It is a complex analysis because pollution levels and the way the human body processes compounds can vary. A few teams have investigated this for bicyclists, and they focused on the analysis of blood, urine and saliva samples from those riding in urban or rural areas. But until now, no one has looked at bicyclists’ absorption of pollutants while riding on multiple types of routes. So, Alexander Bigazzi and colleagues took a more in-depth look at the issue by using breath analysis.

The researchers studied the breath of three cyclists in Portland, Oregon, who rode on off-street bike paths, local streets with lighter traffic and main streets with heavier traffic. They also measured pollution levels in ambient air. Using a pollution detector mounted on the bicycles, the team found that the on-road exposure levels (above the urban background) of volatile organic compounds, a kind of pollution, were 100 to 200 percent higher when the cyclists took routes through high-traffic or industrial areas as compared to low-traffic or off-street routes. Using breath analysis, the team found that absorbed compounds were 40 to 100 percent higher in these situations. The study confirms that people can reduce their exposure and absorption of these toxicants — and potentially mitigate their health effects — by riding farther away from city traffic.

Source: Measuring the airborne toxicants urban bicyclists inhale — ScienceDaily

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