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Contaminated air travels much farther than it does to the lungs. What happens in the body when particulate matter enters the blood and travels with it throughout the body? From year to year, scientists discover new effects of breathing smog.
WHO reports that 9 out of 10 people in the world breathe polluted air every day. For several years, this factor has been at the top of the list of the 10 greatest threats to human health.
Smog – a mixture that is deadly to the lungs and the heart
Health is especially damaged by smog, which contains suspended dust and a whole lot of harmful chemicals, such as sulfur oxide, carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, aldehydes. Smog enters the body through the respiratory tract. Bigger particulate matter (PM10) they are retained by the epithelium lining the nasopharyngeal cavity and retained in the mucosa. They cause chronic rhinitis and recurrent laryngitis. In contrast, smaller particles (PM2.5) end up in the alveoli. They increase the risk of bronchitis, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
However, the journey of air polluted with particulate matter does not end there. PM2.5 enters the bloodstream and is spread throughout the body. In pregnant women, it reaches the fetus through the placenta-vascular barrier. Doctors sound the alarm: there are no systems or organs in the human body that are not affected by polluted air.
Every year science provides new evidence that smog poisons the entire body.
– The World Health Organization, assessing the impact of polluted air on human health, estimated that 6 to 7 million people die prematurely worldwide each year due to air pollution.
In Poland it is 40-45 thousand unnecessary deaths per year. It is a medium-sized city that disappears from the surface of Poland because the air is polluted. In about 70 percent. these are deaths caused mainly by diseases of the heart and circulatory system – says prof. Paweł Buszman, cardiologist from the Medical University of Silesia in an interview, which became part of the report created by Onet and Airly #ODDYCHAJ POLSKO.
Smog and the circulatory system. How is atherosclerosis formed?
Air containing particulate matter wreaks havoc on the body from the moment it passes through the nostrils. Once it is in the lungs, it is unstoppable.
– The dust passes through the large and small bronchi to the alveoli, there they settle on their walls and pass through the alveolar-capillary barrier to small blood vessels – capillaries. In contact with leukocytes, they stimulate them. The leukocyte, whose task is to eliminate all foreign bodies from the body, when it comes into contact with dust particles, recognizes them as a foreign body and is stimulated. Such a leukocyte becomes aggressive and initiates the inflammatory process. Circulating in the blood, stimulated leukocytes damage the vascular endothelium, and thus provoke wall clots and accelerated atherosclerosis – explains Prof. Bushman.
The consequences of atherosclerosis are heart attacks, strokes, coronary artery disease and other cardiovascular complications.
Can smog cause cancer?
In 2013 year The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified air pollution as a carcinogen. This is because particulate matter contains many harmful microparticles, including heavy metals (arsenic, nickel, cadmium, lead), dioxins and benzopyrene.
An increase in air pollution by just 10 micrograms per cubic meter increases the risk of lung cancer by 9%. This means that when the highest concentrations of dust in the air are recorded at the peak of the heating season, the probability of developing cancer in the inhabitants of polluted cities increases by 20–40%.
A study conducted in Hong Kong by prof. G. Neil Thomas of the University of Birmingham suggests that air pollution increases the risk of death from other types of cancer as well, including breast, liver and pancreatic cancer.
Smog and fertility disorders. Polluted air harms procreation?
According to WHO, about 15 percent. people of procreating age have problems with fertility. This percentage increases every year. Among the causes are environmental factors, mainly air pollution. In June 2019, during the meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, Prof. Antonio La Marca from the University of Modena presented the results of the research showing that Breathing of poor-quality air disrupts the functioning of the ovariesthat secrete female sex hormones. The lowest levels of anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) in the research group were found in women most exposed to the air with a high content of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide.
Also this year, at a conference in New Orleans, Dr. Elaine Maria Frade Costa of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil presented the results of a study that suggests that exposure to particulate matter affects male fertility. It can lead to the production of less sperm with worse parameters.
Smog is not indifferent to the brain. Does it cause mental disorders?
At the end of August 2019, a report on the results of international research conducted by scientists from the USA and Denmark was published in the journal “PLOS Biology”. According to the authors air pollutants are toxic to the brain, impair cognitive functions and produce behavioral symptoms. But that’s not all. They may be associated with the occurrence of mental disorders – they increase the risk of depression, schizophrenia and personality disorders. The research divided the scientific community. For the time being, the reviewers treat them with caution and say that the dependence requires more documentation. Meanwhile, dr hab. Marcin Szwed from the Institute of Psychology of the Jagiellonian University suspects that smog stops the maturation of brain connectionsand even causes certain parts of the brain to die in children.
– The key word in smog-induced diseases is inflammation. As the brain matures, we are talking about schoolchildren, there is a continuous process of refining the connections of the nervous system, which can be compared to the cables that connect different parts of the brain – the front and back, the senses and attention center, etc. These “cables” as they develop baby are put in order. We connect what is important, we disconnect the less important. This process seems disrupted. And it is disturbed, because when the body deals with the fight against inflammation, it inevitably spends less energy on developing, improving and strengthening the brain – explains the scientist in the interview attached to the #ODDYCHAJPOLSKO report.
You can expect new reports at any time. Conclusions need to be drawn today.
The editorial board recommends:
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