By Sarah Kirsh
In a modern industrial world, air pollution and toxic emissions are a daily, hourly, and constant event. To begin, there is a natural level of “pollutants” in our atmosphere. Natural sources like wildfires and volcanoes have been contributing to air pollution for hundreds of years. However, anthropogenic causes have increased the presence of air pollutants astronomically since the Industrial Revolution. These sources include cars, industrial plants, power plants, livestock, airplanes, and so much more. But regardless of the source, air pollution is a regular part of life and can certainly affect your health.
Air pollution is a term that can include a number of toxins released into the atmosphere. Most commonly, air pollution is composed of nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and particulate matter. Particulate matter is an even wider term, referring to any loose gas or liquid particle suspended in the air. As these chemicals reside in the air, the obvious health concern would be for our lungs. Yes, air pollution can harm your lungs, especially the smaller particulate matter of PM2.5. However, deeper research has shown an environmental health concern with another crucial organ: the heart.
The EPA explains that air pollution can harm the cardiovascular system in three ways: inflammation, entrance into the blood, and effects on the autonomic nervous system which controls heart rate. Many of these effects are a result of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a chemical imbalance that gives rise to several unstable molecules. These unstable molecules will bond to really anything, changing the function of any protein, fat, or DNA. So clearly this could cause a lot of trouble for the human body. The clinical words and diseases are acute coronary syndrome, myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, chronic heart failure, and stroke. In more simplified words air pollution can damage or restrict the walls of your blood vessels, making them harder or narrower and increasing blood pressure. The chemical imbalance of oxidative stress can change the usual electrical work of the heart and thus the normal beating rhythm. Each of these is a daily risk due to the pollutants and greenhouse gasses the world releases every moment of every day.
Environmental health concerns are the hardest to combat, especially when you cannot necessarily change the concentration of chemicals in your neighborhood. However, there are ways to decrease the risk of negative cardiovascular effects. On the preventative side, there are several websites that indicate the daily air quality levels such as The Weather Channel and AirNow. The British Heart Foundation suggests simply eating a healthy diet and staying active to boost your overall health and combat potential risks. On the plus side, our current pandemic habit of wearing masks most likely benefits us twice by decreasing pollution inhalation. However, to see the large scale change, the world will have to shift environmental policy to decrease emissions and protect human health.
Sources:
The British Heart Foundation
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/risk-factors/air-pollution
British Heart Foundation. 2021. What is air pollution?. [online] Available at <https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/risk-factors/air-pollution> [Accessed 1 February 2021].
“Air conditioning and source-specific particles as modifiers of the effect of PM(10) on hospital admissions for heart and lung disease” paper
Janssen NA, Schwartz J, Zanobetti A, Suh HH. Air conditioning and source-specific particles as modifiers of the effect of PM(10) on hospital admissions for heart and lung
“Particulate air pollution and coronary heart disease” paper
Simkhovich BZ, Kleinman MT, Kloner RA. Particulate air pollution and coronary heart disease. Curr Opin Cardiol. 2009;24(6):604-609. doi:10.1097/HCO.0b013e32833161e5
EPA
https://www.epa.gov/pmcourse/particle-pollution-and-cardiovascular-effects
“ Particle Pollution and Cardiovascular Effects”
United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2021. Particle Pollution and Cardiovascular Effects. [online] EPA. Available at: <https://www.epa.gov/pmcourse/particle-pollution-and-cardiovascular-effects> [Accessed 1 February 2021].
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