As if the carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicle operations aren't bad enough, here are some other environmental bads that come from automobile driving and other combustion sources:
[Particulate matter is a mixture of tiny particles, including dust and droplets of liquid in the air, generated mostly by vehicle exhaust and other industrial processes. The smallest of the particles, PM 2.5, is measured in micrograms per cubic meter; it is less than 2.5 microns in diameter and invisible to the human eye.] I saw this report aired on the local news last night (Channel 15). Mike Neuman -------------------------------------- EcoWellness: Pollution and the heart Jan. 31, 2007 By CHRISTINE DELL'AMORE WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- A new study that shows a powerful connection between particulate pollution and the risk of cardiovascular disease and death should motivate policymakers and health officials to limit Americans' exposure to air pollution, a burgeoning public-health danger. Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle have found postmenopausal women living in U.S. cities and exposed to average levels of fine particulate matter pollution, or PM 2.5, were drastically more at risk for getting cardiovascular disease and dying from its complications. The study, which will appear Feb. 1 in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the largest study of its kind and the first to evaluate the effects of air pollution on new cases of cardiovascular disease in healthy subjects. It's also the first to examine local air-pollution levels within a city -- by taking data from several air-quality monitors in different neighborhoods of one city -- rather than comparing rates between cities, which is considered a less accurate measure. The study underscores the need for research on the health effects of pollution and for more pollution prevention, lead author Dr. Joel Kaufman, a professor of environmental health and medicine at the university, told United Press International. Kaufman and colleagues studied 65,893 women who lived in 36 U.S. cities from 1994 to 1998 and followed them for an average of six years. The women did not have previous histories of cardiovascular problems. The data came from the Women's Health Initiative, a major federal effort to investigate health outcomes in women, who have been long neglected in medical research. The researchers measured each woman's exposure to air pollutants by getting data from a pollution monitor closest to her ZIP code. Over the follow-up period 1,816 women had one or more fatal or non- fatal cardiovascular or cerebrovascular events, such as coronary heart disease, heart attacks and stroke. Particulate matter is a mixture of tiny particles, including dust and droplets of liquid in the air, generated mostly by vehicle exhaust and other industrial processes. The smallest of the particles, PM 2.5, is measured in micrograms per cubic meter; it is less than 2.5 microns in diameter and invisible to the human eye. The metropolitan areas tested in Kaufman and colleagues' study generally had average levels of PM pollution, from about 4 to 20 micrograms per cubic meter. But with each increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter there was a 24- percent increase in the risk of a cardiovascular event among the study subjects and a 76-percent rise in the risk of death, the researchers found. The team also noted differences in PM concentrations throughout various areas of a city. These fluctuations also translated to higher or lower health risks for the women, based on where they lived. The researchers corrected for age, race, smoking status, educational level, household income and other markers that could skew the results. However, the study was not a true experiment, and it's not possible to say for sure whether air pollution causes cardiovascular problems. Likewise, the measurements of air pollution were not exact, despite being more localized than other studies, and it's unknown where some women spent more time in traffic or indoors. The researchers also were not able to measure short-term exposures to PM. How short-term and long-term exposures differ is still being studied. PM can travel into the deepest areas of the lungs when inhaled, and exposure has been linked in past studies to several health conditions, from aggravated asthma to premature death in people with heart and lung disease, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Most research has targeted PM 2.5, which is believed to be most detrimental to health. Although the link between PM exposure and heart problems is not well understood, some scientists suspect the particles encourage hardening of the arteries, a forerunner to heart disease. Kaufman told UPI his next research will focus on this question. In 2006 the EPA, which is charged with setting PM standards to protect public health, made a series of revisions to its national air-quality standards. The standards were based on data from an ongoing, colossal research initiative to study the health effects of particulate matter. In 1997 the EPA recruited thousands of peer-reviewed epidemiologic studies on PM 2.5 and PM 10, the coarser particles, in the United States and Canada. Many of these studies have reported a connection between lung cancer and particulate matter, and observed a spike in sudden heart-attack deaths in people exposed to the pollutants. The California Children's Health Study showed PM 2.5 exposure was linked to a slowing of lung growth in children, which compromised the lungs' long-term function. The research found both long-term and short- term exposure to fine particles is associated with sickness and death. A follow-up to one major study, Harvard's Six Cities, suggested a reduction in PM 2.5 levels subsequently lowers a person's long-term risk of death. A 2006 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found short-term exposure to PM 2.5 can increase hospitalization of older adults suffering from heart and respiratory problems. The new study led by Kaufman "is going to be a landmark study," said Dr. Ralph Delfino, an associate professor and epidemiologist at the University of California-Irvine. What's most telling, he says, is the magnitude of the associations between PM exposure and cardiovascular troubles were much larger than found in previous studies. Delfino was also impressed by the careful collection of air-pollution data within cities, as most studies have relied on between-city comparisons. By gathering data from the nearest air-pollution monitor where a woman lived, the researchers were able to reduce "exposure error," or the tendency to ascribe a type of exposure to every resident in a city. "The very robust contrast of between-city and within-city associations really suggests we need to look at effects at a smaller spatial scale, even down to where you live and work," Delfino said. Capturing exposures in finer detail will inform better policies and standards for controlling PM. Public-health agencies such as the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences are committed to improving ways to measure exposure, Delfino pointed out. The Women's Health Initiative data also gave the researchers a wealth of details about the women's physical qualities and behaviors, an improvement upon previous studies that had to rely on gross measures of study populations, said Dr. Russell Luepker, a Mayo professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis. As a growing momentum toward more regulation of PM pollution takes shape, many in industry ask the question, "Where's the proof?" said Luepker. "Studies like this answer that question." The study makes it clear that at the current standards for PM pollution, Americans continue to be at risk for cardiovascular problems and even death, Delfino said. "The current regulations are seemingly inadequate to protect us," he added. Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved. http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1- 20070131-17571900-bc-ecowellness-women.xml Related Studies: Exposure To Fine Particle Air Pollution Linked With Risk Of Respiratory And Cardiovascular Diseases, March 8, 2006 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060308084559.htm Air Pollution Linked To Heart Attack, Sept. 26, 2005 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050926074103.htm Living Near A Highway Affects Lung Development In Children, Jan. 29, 2007 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=61700 Air Pollution Linked to Lung Cancer, Sept. 19, 2006 http://www.cancerherald.com/682-air-pollution-linked-to-lung-cancer Breast-Cancer Risk Linked to Exposure to Traffic Emissions at Menarche, First Birth http://www.buffalo.edu/news/fast-execute.cgi/article-page.html? article=72710009 _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
