Air pollution has long been known to harm our health due to how it can damage our lungs, worsen asthma symptoms, and affect heart health. However, a new study published in GeroScience has found something alarming that goes beyond just making people ill. The study suggests that air pollution may not only cause illness but also shorten people’s life expectancy due to their diseases developing sooner than expected.
If we think about it simply, the air we are breathing could be hastening the onset of our future disease(s) without giving us any indication that there is even an existing disease.
What The Study Actually Discovered
Data collected from roughly 396,000 patients by researchers utilising the large UK Biobank (which contains data from almost 900,000 hospitalisations) was analysed without regard to whether pollution causes disease. Instead, researchers wanted to know if pollution was causing diseases to develop sooner in people’s lives than they would normally have.
The answer, unfortunately, was yes—exposure to air pollutants such as PM2.5, PM10, and nitrogen oxides is not only associated with an increased risk for multiple chronic diseases but also with a significantly earlier onset of those diseases.
All of these diseases include heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, digestive disease (such as Crohn’s), neurological disease (such as Alzheimer’s), and all cancers combined. Of the 78 diseases in the analysis, 46 had evidence of an earlier age of onset due to pollution exposure.
Decreases in the age of onset of disease as small as 1% may seem small; however, when examining a population of millions of people, it can lead to an enormous loss of healthy years around the world.
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The Most Alarming Finding: Impact On The Brain
The research sheds light on how greatly pollution affects the brain, with neurologic and psychological issues having the earliest onset of increased amounts of air pollution. Earlier onsets of dementia, schizophrenia, migraines, and nerve-related diseases has been shown to occur in people who are exposed to higher levels of air pollution. This suggests that the brain is extremely susceptible to the pollutants we breathe in each day.
The reason for this is not surprising. Polluted air promotes systemic inflammation and oxidative stress, both responsible for damaging cells and accelerating ageing. Pollutants that enter the bloodstream through the lungs can negatively impact other organs throughout the body, including the brain.
Why This Changes The Way We Think About Health
Current health guidance often emphasises the need for an individual to develop a healthy lifestyle through proper nutrition, regular physical activity, managing stress, and remaining smoke-free. Although these areas are still important considerations, this research adds a new dimension to how we think about health by demonstrating how environmental factors, especially air quality, directly impact when we will get sick, as opposed to just if we will get sick. This means that even if an individual adheres to all aspects of a healthy lifestyle, they may still experience health issues at a younger age than someone who adopts a healthy lifestyle but lives in a lower-quality air environment, compared to the former, solely due to how much pollution they breathe every day due to their living conditions.
A Wake-Up Call For Policy And People
The research results are about more than just health – they’re about how people and society interact with one another. If exposure to dirty air is speeding up the clock on illnesses, then preventing air pollution is more than just being clean & healthy. Improving our environment is an act of extending human life & longevity!
The authors of this research have stressed that we need to take action to change how we regulate and control the air that we breathe. Cleaner indoor & outdoor air could reduce how fast people get sick.
Final Take
This research provides an urgent warning by suggesting that air pollution poses a threat today, besides being a potential hazard for you to face later in life. Rather than just presenting symptoms of respiratory illness at age sixty, air pollution begins producing symptoms now by advancing disease and eliminating years of good health.
We often focus on diet and lifestyle in our busy lives, but this research provides an important reminder that air pollution – which is also hidden – is equally as vital as diet and lifestyle to our overall health.
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