When he was 10 years old, John O’Connor was diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse, a condition that can affect blood flow to and from the left side of the heart. Today, the 23-year-old eats a meat-free diet, exercises regularly, and meditates to lower his stress and keep his heart healthy. But there’s a hidden heart-health risk factor that he says he doesn’t know much about: air pollution.
O’Connor lives in Philadelphia, which ranks No. 11 on the American Lung Association’s list of most polluted U.S. cities in terms of unhealthy levels of ozone. Emerging research suggests that simply breathing the air in big cities like Philly increases O’Connor’s risk of having additional heart problems and potentially compromises his recovery if he had a heart attack.
A September study by Harvard University epidemiologists found that the microscopic particles in polluted air can decrease the heart’s electrical functioning in people with serious coronary artery disease. Avoiding air pollution can reduce the risk of heart attack, heart failure, and other complications, especially in patients who are recovering after being hospitalized, according to Diane R. Gold, MD, the study’s senior author and an associate professor of medicine and environmental health at Harvard.
In fact, air pollution plays a major role in the heart’s health. Smoking is a well-documented culprit in heart disease, but a 2003 study by New York University researchers found that a nonsmoker living in a polluted city has about the same risk of dying of heart disease as a former smoker.
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Comments (7)
In Toronto, a new report has come out showing that the air quality tests currently being performed are under-reporting the amount of pollution in city centres.
Downtown city dwellers are living in an even more toxic atmosphere than they originally thought.
Still, those levels may not necessarily be that much worse, and downtown areas are varied themselves. I suspect that living by a large body of water downtown, by a park or really high up may not be worse than some lesser area outside of the core.
Yet interestingly, urban men have higher quality sperm than rural men. One theory holds that exposure to pesticides is greater in agricultural areas, which reduces sperm count.
What is a person to do? Move to the backwoods, or the desert? It seems this planet is overpopulated by several orders of magnitude.
very interesting.
How to reverse or prevent Heart Disease here.
Taken omega3 and vit-e can help, with regular exsercise.
Hi,
Because Climate Change is a Type of Air Pollution. When people think of air pollution, they most often associate it with the sort of dirty discharge that can be readily seen coming from the smokestacks of coal-fired plants or even the particulate matter that is emitted from automotive tailpipes. However, the most common and potentially dangerous gases that threaten life on Earth are actually greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide and methane, together, account for about 30% of the “greenhouse effect” that, at levels that had been steady since the end of the last ice age, keeps the Earth at the relatively comfortable temperatures that more life enjoys. However, while the levels of water vapor (which actually account for most of the greenhouse effect) have remained relatively stable, the amount of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere has sky-rocketed, due largely to the burning of fossil fuels and the massive increase in the number of ruminant animals used for meat production.
SustainGreenPower.com
All i have to say is we have to try to make sure that we all should fine the solution to the airpollution.