International travelers experience the harmful effects of air pollution

Posted on June 14, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

Even a short stay for travelers in cities with high levels of air pollution leads to breathing problems that can take at least a week from which to recover, a new study shows.

Led by researchers at NYU School of Medicine, the study is the first of its kind, say the authors, to analyze pollution-related coughing and breathing difficulties, and recovery times upon returning home, in healthy, young adults traveling internationally.

Published earlier this month in the Journal of Travel Medicine, the finding is timely given that the number of tourists travelling internationally is expected to grow to 1.8 billion by 2030, according to the World Tourism Organization.

“We had several reports that tourists were feeling sick when visiting polluted cities, so it became important for us to understand what was really happening to their health,” says senior study investigator Terry Gordon, PhD, a professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at NYU Langone Health.

For the study, researchers analyzed six measurements of lung and heart health in 34 men and women traveling abroad for at least a week from the metropolitan New York City area. Most were visiting family in cities with consistently high levels of air pollution, including Ahmedabad and New Delhi, India; Rawalpindi, Pakistan; and Xian, China.

Some destinations studied — Beijing, Shanghai, and Milan — are heavily polluted during certain months but have relatively cleaner air at other times. Other, mostly European, destinations such as Geneva, London; San Sebastien, Spain; Copenhagen; Prague; Stockholm; Oslo; and Reykjavik had consistently lower levels of air pollution. The research team noted that New York City has relatively low levels of air pollution, in part because of strict regulations, its location on the coast, and weather patterns.

Specifically, the study found that being in a polluted city reduced measures of lung function by an average of 6 percent and by as much as 20 percent in some people. Participants also ranked their respiratory symptoms from one (mild) to five (requiring treatment), reporting a cumulative average symptom score of eight.

People who visited the highly polluted cities reported as many as five symptoms, while those who visited lower pollution cities had fewer or none. Two patients sought medical attention because of their symptoms. The pollution levels of the cities studied did not make a significant difference in the blood pressure of visitors, researchers say.

All study participants had a normal body mass index (between 21 and 29 for men, and between 18 and 26 for women), and none had preexisting health conditions. Before embarking on their travels, all were taught how to measure their lung function and heart rate daily using commercially available spirometers (to measure lung function), wrist blood pressure monitors, and heart rate sensors. Researchers then compared the health data against levels of air pollution collected from local government agencies.

The researchers used international standards to categorize highly polluted cities as those having more than 100 micrograms per cubic meter of particulate matter (PM), or air pollution dust. Moderate pollution is anything between 35 and 100 micrograms per cubic meter of PM, and low pollutions levels are anything less than that.

“What travelers should know is that the potential effects of air pollution on their health are real and that they should take any necessary precautions they can,” says study lead investigator M.J. Ruzmyn Vilcassim, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Environmental Medicine.

Gordon suggests that those visiting highly polluted cities should consider wearing masks or consult a doctor prior to travel if they have preexisting respiratory or cardiac health difficulties, and to consider avoiding travel during certain months. For instance, farmers burn their fields during the winter months in New Delhi, India, raising levels of pollutants in the city.

Although participants gradually returned to normal health, study investigators say there needs to be more follow-up research to know if there were long-term effects, or if longer stays would influence the pollution impact. Next, researchers plan to study international travelers who are more susceptible to the effects of air pollution, such as the elderly and people with asthma or heart conditions.

Funding for the study was provided by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences grants ES000260 and ES007324, an Air Waste and Management Association 2017 Scholarship, and an NYU College of Global Public Health grant.

In addition to Gordon and Vilcassim, other NYU School of Medicine researchers include George D. Thurston, ScD; Lung-Chi Chen, PhD; Chris C. Lim, PhD; Eric Saunders, PhD; and Yixin Yao, PhD.

Story Source:

Materials provided by NYU Langone Health / NYU School of Medicine. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

via International travelers experience the harmful effects of air pollution — ScienceDaily

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Barcelona port is worst in Europe for cruise ship air pollution

Posted on June 8, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

City tops list of 50 European ports for both sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions

The port of Barcelona, a city already overwhelmed by mass tourism, has topped a list of 50 European ports for the amount of air pollution produced there by cruise ships, according to a report.

In 2017 cruise ships emitted 32.8 tonnes of sulphur oxide (SOx) in Barcelona, according to the research. Palma de Mallorca was the second most polluted, with 28 tonnes, followed by Venice with 27.5. Southampton, with 19.7 tonnes, was fifth on the list.

Barcelona also leads in the amount of carcinogenic nitrogen oxide (NOx) particles the ships emit. Cruise ships account for 15% of the NOx emitted by all of Europe’s passenger vehicles.

“Cities are, and with reason, banning diesel vehicles but at the same time are allowing free entry to cruise ship companies whose ships’ emissions cause immeasurable damage,” said Faig Abbasov, maritime coordinator of the NGO behind the report, Brussels-based Transport and Environment.

Ships run on fuel oil, which contains about 2,000 times more sulphur oxide than ordinary diesel. The report claims that cruise ships docking in European ports produced 10 times more sulphur emissions than all the 260m cars in those countries combined. In the case of Barcelona, in 2017 cruise ships emitted nearly five times as much SOx as all the city’s cars.

A recent report by the environmental group Ecologists in Action said toxic particles from the ships were detected as far as 249 miles (400km) from Barcelona’s port. The impact is exacerbated by ships leaving their engines running while in port.

The city is Europe’s busiest cruise ship destination, with some 2.7 million passengers disembarking from 800 ships in 2017. On a single day last October, seven ships with 18,000 passengers and 6,000 crew were docked in the port.

Environmental groups and residents associations in the city have campaigned for years for the numbers to be curbed. Last year, the Symphony of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, was met by protests when it arrived in Barcelona for its maiden voyage.

Campaigners argue that not only are the ships endangering residents’ health, especially those who live near the port, they are a form of tourism that brings few benefits to the city.

Most passengers visit the city for around five hours, spending an average of €57 each, and return to their ships at night.

Gala Pin, a Barcelona councillor who represents the old city that adjoins the port, raised a few eyebrows last year when she compared cruise ship tourists to locusts.

“In my opinion, we shouldn’t have this kind of tourism,” she said. “It’s like a plague of locusts. They devour the public space and then they leave.”

While the city authorities have tried to limit the number of ships, they are good business for the port, which is managed by central government, not the city council.

The International Maritime Organization limits the amount of sulphur in fuel oil to 3.5% and in 2020 a new limit of 0.5% will come into force. However, under the European Union’s clean air policy, the limit in the Mediterranean may be reduced to 0.1%.

Under current rules, there is a policy of zero emissions while ships are docked in Baltic, North Sea and Channel ports, and there are plans to extend this to the Mediterranean.

via Barcelona port is worst in Europe for cruise ship air pollution | Cities | The Guardian

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Earliest human air pollution detected in glaciers

Posted on June 6, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

Researchers in Peru have discovered some of the earliest evidence of air pollution, and their report reveals new information about the extent that carbon emissions accelerate the melting of glaciers.

The report, released by the National Institute of Research on Glaciers and Mountain Ecosystems (INAIGEM) in Peru, also indicates that black carbon emissions in particular have a direct impact on the rate at which glaciers melt.

According to Jesús Gómez López, the Director of Glaciers Research at INAIGEM, “There are different sources of black carbon that can deposit on glaciers, some are wildfires, burning of agricultural waste and the emissions from vehicle fleets. Studies show that the concentration of black carbon is greater in glaciers close to large cities.”

The 1,200-year-old Quelccaya Ice Cap contained small traces of lead and mercury believed to be pollution from silver mines during the early Spanish invasion. Climate change and air pollution can often be tied to colonialism and the exploitation of indigenous populations and lands.

Metal working and mining by the Incas had “most likely only a local impact on the environment surrounding their mining operations. In contrast, the mining … activities performed by the Spanish had an impact on the atmosphere of the entire South America continent,” said Paolo Gabrielli, a researcher from Ohio State who contributed to the first paper on the discovery.

Although the age of the pollution is impressive, researchers are quick to point out that all glaciers contain human-caused pollution at this point.

“Today, there are no glaciers on Earth where atmospheric deposition of anthropogenic origin cannot be detected,” said a report from Ohio State University.

Researchers also suggest that emissions from fires, transportation and industry should be curtailed in order to reduce glacial melt and trap carbon in place. They also note that while air pollution is hundreds of years old, today’s level of air pollution is unprecedented.

via Earliest human air pollution detected in glaciers

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New study links air pollution with atherosclerosis

Posted on June 3, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

New research suggests that chronic exposure to ambient ozone may raise the risk of atherosclerosis and harm arterial health.

Atherosclerosis is the result of fatty deposits — such as cholesterol, fat, or cellular waste — accumulating inside a person’s arteries.

Over time, the buildup of plaque inside the blood vessels’ walls thickens the arteries, which restricts the blood, nutrients, and oxygen that would normally reach the rest of the body.

Atherosclerosis can lead to more dangerous cardiovascular events, such as coronary heart disease or peripheral artery disease, as well as a heart attack or stroke.

While researchers do not yet know what triggers atherosclerosis, factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and cigarette smoking are believed to cause much of the damage.

New research points the finger at another possible culprit: air pollution. Meng Wang, Ph.D., an assistant professor of epidemiology and environmental health at the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions in New York, is the lead author of the study.

Wang and the team published their findings in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Ozone exposure and atherosclerosis
Wang and colleagues clinically followed 6,619 adults, who were 45–84 years old and who did not have cardiovascular disease or any other conditions at the start of the study.

They followed the participants for a mean period of 6.5 years, as part of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis in which the participants had enrolled. They came from six cities across the United States: Winston-Salem, NC; New York City, NY; Baltimore, MD; St. Paul, MN; Chicago, IL; and Los Angeles, CA.

“We used statistical models to capture whether there are significant associations between ozone exposure and [atherosclerosis],” explains Wang.

“[The model] suggests that there is an association between long-term exposure to ozone and progression of atherosclerosis,” he goes on to report.

Specifically, the study found an association between chronic ozone exposure and an “increased rate of carotid wall thickness progression and risk of new plaque formation.” These results suggested arterial injury in the carotid arteries — the two large vessels that supply blood to the head and neck.

“This may indicate that the association between long-term exposure to ozone and cardiovascular mortality that has been observed in some studies is due to arterial injury and acceleration of atherosclerosis,” comments Wang.

via New study links air pollution with atherosclerosis

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International travelers experience the harmful effects of air pollution

Posted on May 31, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

Even a short stay for travelers in cities with high levels of air pollution leads to breathing problems that can take at least a week from which to recover, a new study shows.

Led by researchers at NYU School of Medicine, the study is the first of its kind, say the authors, to analyze pollution-related coughing and breathing difficulties, and recovery times upon returning home, in healthy, young adults traveling internationally.

Published earlier this month in the Journal of Travel Medicine, the finding is timely given that the number of tourists travelling internationally is expected to grow to 1.8 billion by 2030, according to the World Tourism Organization.

“We had several reports that tourists were feeling sick when visiting polluted cities, so it became important for us to understand what was really happening to their health,” says senior study investigator Terry Gordon, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at NYU Langone Health.

For the study, researchers analyzed six measurements of lung and heart health in 34 men and women traveling abroad for at least a week from the metropolitan New York City area. Most were visiting family in cities with consistently high levels of air pollution, including Ahmedabad and New Delhi, India; Rawalpindi, Pakistan; and Xian, China.

Some destinations studied ? Beijing, Shanghai, and Milan ? are heavily polluted during certain months but have relatively cleaner air at other times. Other, mostly European, destinations such as Geneva, London; San Sebastien, Spain; Copenhagen; Prague; Stockholm; Oslo; and Reykjavik had consistently lower levels of air pollution. The research team noted that New York City has relatively low levels of air pollution, in part because of strict regulations, its location on the coast, and weather patterns.

Specifically, the study found that being in a polluted city reduced measures of lung function by an average of 6 percent and by as much as 20 percent in some people. Participants also ranked their respiratory symptoms from one (mild) to five (requiring treatment), reporting a cumulative average symptom score of eight.

People who visited the highly polluted cities reported as many as five symptoms, while those who visited lower pollution cities had fewer or none. Two patients sought medical attention because of their symptoms. The pollution levels of the cities studied did not make a significant difference in the blood pressure of visitors, researchers say.

All study participants had a normal body mass index (between 21 and 29 for men, and between 18 and 26 for women), and none had preexisting health conditions. Before embarking on their travels, all were taught how to measure their lung function and heart rate daily using commercially available spirometers (to measure lung function), wrist blood pressure monitors, and heart rate sensors. Researchers then compared the health data against levels of air pollution collected from local government agencies.

The researchers used international standards to categorize highly polluted cities as those having more than 100 micrograms per cubic meter of particulate matter (PM), or air pollution dust. Moderate pollution is anything between 35 and 100 micrograms per cubic meter of PM, and low pollutions levels are anything less than that.

“What travelers should know is that the potential effects of air pollution on their health are real and that they should take any necessary precautions they can,” says study lead investigator M.J. Ruzmyn Vilcassim, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Environmental Medicine.

Gordon suggests that those visiting highly polluted cities should consider wearing masks or consult a doctor prior to travel if they have preexisting respiratory or cardiac health difficulties, and to consider avoiding travel during certain months. For instance, farmers burn their fields during the winter months in New Delhi, India, raising levels of pollutants in the city.

Although participants gradually returned to normal health, study investigators say there needs to be more follow-up research to know if there were long-term effects, or if longer stays would influence the pollution impact. Next, researchers plan to study international travelers who are more susceptible to the effects of air pollution, such as the elderly and people with asthma or heart conditions.

via International travelers experience the harmful effects of air pollution

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Pollution is a ‘significant’ problem at 401 national parks, report says

Posted on May 31, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

More than 96% of national parks assessed in a recent report are “plagued by significant air pollution problems,” and some of California’s most iconic parks are among the most troubled, according to one of the nation’s largest nonprofit conservation associations.

The National Parks Conservation Association said in its May “Polluted Parks” report that 401 of 417 national parks that were looked at suffered from air pollution-related problems in at least one of four areas: climate change, damage to nature, visibility and air that is unhealthy to breathe.

That report noted that in 2018, four California parks—Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Joshua Tree national parks, and Mojave National Preserve—measured “unhealthy” air conditions for visitors and park rangers more than two months out of the year. The worst days are usually in the summer.

“Much of the air pollution in these parks comes from vehicles and the agriculture industry in the San Joaquin Valley—one of the most polluted areas in the nation—where residents are frequently exposed to unsafe air,” the report reads.

Unhealthy air was measured in NPCA’s report in terms of high ozone levels. Air pollution at those four California parks is at times worse than that found in cities like Los Angeles and Houston, the report claims.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon got an F grade in healthy air in a 2015 pollution report by NPCA, which ranked them tied for the No. 1 most air-polluted national park.

The report claims that temperatures at national parks are rising at double the rate of the U.S. as a whole, “threatening the very existence of namesake features at Glacier, Joshua Tree and Saguaro National Parks.”

Climate change, the report says, is “intensifying flooding, drought and wildfires.” All three of which have had an especially large presence in California over the past decade.

NPCA’s report also alludes to hazy skies at Yosemite and Sequoia National Park, the latter of which frequently sees days where visibility is cut down by 90 miles due to air pollution.

The study says unhealthy air is a “significant” problem at 85% of the 417 parks monitored; harm to nature at 88%; hazy skies at 89%; and climate change at 80%.

In proposing possible solutions for these issues, the report sharply criticizes Trump administration environmental policies for reversing progress made by the Clean Air Act, first implemented in 1963.

“The Trump administration has grossly limited public process and environmental review of new oil and gas leases while fast-tracking development proposals, including one from the Bureau of Land Management in California that would open 1.6 million new acres to drilling.”

The recent BLM plan in question could have an impact at Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and other California parks, NPCA says.

NPCA is a nonpartisan advocacy group on behalf of national parks, with more than 1.3 million members and supporters, according to its website.

NPCA’s Polluted Parks report is subtitled, “How America is Failing to Protect Our National Parks, People and Planet from Air Pollution.” Its final section notes that solutions currently being implemented include a number of pilot programs, including Yosemite’s Zero Landfill Initiative, an effort to significantly reduce landfill waste.

The data used in the report comes from the National Park Service and Environmental Protection Agency.

via Pollution is a ‘significant’ problem at 401 national parks, report says

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Scientists zoom-in on the effects of air pollution at the molecular level

Posted on May 30, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

Air pollution threatens the health of more than 90% of the world’s population — and it all starts with changes triggered at the molecular level. In a newly published study which followed pollution levels before, during, and after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, researchers at the University of Buffalo found that 69 metabolites were affected when air pollution changed.
Metabolites are the end products of the body’s metabolism as well as the results of environmental exposures. Beijing, a city numbering over 21 million people, is one of the most polluted cities in the world. But during the 2008 Olympic Games, local authorities enacted temporary measures that cleared the air — at least for the duration of the games.

How air pollution affects human health

While most of the world’s population focuses their attention on global terrorism and economics, scientists are becoming increasingly alarmed at how air pollution affects human health. Research indicates that 5.5 million people around the globe die prematurely every year due to indoor and outdoor air pollution.

People suffer both short-term and long-term health effects from air pollution, and it causes diseases and complications in nearly every system of the body. Some of these include:

Respiratory and cardiovascular diseases
Neuropsychiatric complications (i.e., seizures, attention deficits, palsies, migraine headaches, and mood disorders)
Eye irritation
Skin diseases
Cancer
Infertility
Birth defects
Premature death
For their study, Lina Mu, an Associate Professor of epidemiology and environmental health, along with colleagues at the University of Buffalo, studied data on 201 adults. The authors performed metabolomics analysis on a subset of 26 non-smokers aged 30 to 65 before the games (when air pollution was at its highest), during the games (when air pollution was low), and after (when air pollution returned to their alarmingly high levels).

The authors used a technique called the “omics” method — based on network analysis — to record changes in all detectable metabolites simultaneously (886 for this study), rather than examining these molecules one by one.

“We found that these metabolites together depicted a relatively comprehensive picture of human body responses to air pollution,” said paper co-author Rachael Hageman Blair, associate professor of biostatistics at UB.
When air pollutants are inhaled, they immediately stimulate the respiratory system, particularly the lungs and nose. Some cell membranes get damaged or even broken, disrupting the secretion of those cells. In the process, the damaged cells may send out signals to other organs and cells in the body, triggering biological responses. Basically, all these broken membranes, secreted products, and signaling molecules are metabolites.

“Think of our body as a society. These metabolites fulfill different positions, such as teacher, farmer, worker, soldier. We need each one functioning properly in order to maintain a healthy system,” said in a statement.

Two major metabolic signatures were identified: one consisting of lipids, the other made up of dipeptides, polyunsaturated fatty acids, taurine, and xanthine. These molecules are produced by the body in response to cellular stability, oxidative stress (which breaks cell membranes), and inflammation (triggered by lipid molecules released by broken cell membranes).

“The good thing is that we also found some protective molecules, namely antioxidants, also increased when air pollution is high, indicating our body has a defense system to reduce harm,” Mu said.

According to Mu, studies like this provide a broader view of the molecular mechanisms involved in the interactions between air pollution and the human body. In the future, it might be possible to identify individuals who are more vulnerable to air pollution — these people could be then guided to avoid exposure or receive custom treatment.

via Scientists zoom-in on the effects of air pollution at the molecular level

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Severe air pollution can cause birth defects, deaths

Posted on May 29, 2019 by Respro® UK Ltd

In a comprehensive study, researchers from Texas A&M University have determined that harmful particulate matter in the atmosphere can produce birth defects and even fatalities during pregnancy using the animal model.

The team of researchers from Texas A&M’s Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Geosciences, the Texas A&M Health Science Center, and colleagues from the University of California-San Diego has had their findings published in the current issue of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

Using female rats, the team examined the adverse health effects of exposure to fine particulate matter consisting of ammonium sulfate commonly found in many locations around the world. Large fractions of this substance were detected not only in Asia, but also in Houston (51 percent) and Los Angeles (31 percent).

During winter months in China and India, where severe haze events frequently occur, fine particulate matter levels were especially high at several hundred micrograms per cubic meter, the team concluded.

Air pollution is a century-old problem for much of the world. According to the World Health Organization, 9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe air containing high level of pollutants, and 1 of every 9 global deaths can be attributed to exposure to air pollution, totaling over 7 million premature deaths a year.

Even in the United States, about one third of the population still live under poor air quality conditions, according to a report released by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2018.

“People typically believe that ammonium sulfate may not be terribly toxic, but our results show large impacts on female pregnant rats,” Renyi Zhang, Texas A&M Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and the Harold J. Haynes Chair in Geosciences and one of the leading authors, said. “It is unclear yet what is causing these profound effects, but we speculate that the size of nanoparticles or even the acidity may be the culprit.”

Zhang said sulfate is mainly produced from coal burning, which is a major energy source for much of the world in both developed and developing countries. Ammonium is derived from ammonia, which is produced from agricultural, automobile, and animal emissions, “so this certainly represents a major problem worldwide,” Zhang said.

“However, our results show that prenatal exposure to air pollution may not dispose offspring to obesity in adulthood,” said Guoyao Wu, Texas A&M University Distinguished Professor and another of the lead authors of the study. “Nutrition and lifestyle are likely major factors contributing to the current obesity epidemic worldwide.”

Numerous previous studies have shown that air pollution is a serious public health threat throughout the world, with millions of people breathing air that is far less than standards set by the World Health Organization.

In addition, previous studies have shown such pollution to impair metabolic and immune systems in animal offspring, but the team’s study shows definitive proof of decreased fetal survival rates, and also shortened gestation rates that can result in smaller body weight, in addition to damage to brains, hearts and other organs in the adult rat models.

The findings present obvious concerns and challenges on a multi-scale level, the team concludes.

“While epidemiological studies have been widely adopted to assess the health effects of air pollution, these tend to yield little insight into adverse outcomes and long-term effects,” Zhang said.

“Furthermore, there is an absence of clinical recommendations for prevention and treatment of air pollution-related health issues. Our study has demonstrated that well-controlled exposure experiments using animal models offer major advantages for future air pollution control and are promising in the development of therapeutic intervention and treatment procedures.”

via Severe air pollution can cause birth defects, deaths

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