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Air pollution is causing people in the UK to develop chronic diseases such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease earlier, a new study has found.
Researchers from China’s Sun Yat-sen University, Saint Louis University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong analyzed data from the UK Biobank, examining more than 900,000 hospitalization records from 396,000 British people aged 39 to 70 who volunteered to take part in the study between 2006 and 2010.
The study tracked the first occurrence of 78 chronic diseases, including hypertension, stroke, COPD, diabetes and dementia. Researchers found that exposure to high levels of air pollution was associated with earlier onset of 48 of 78 long-term symptoms, more than 61 percent.
Air pollution is estimated to have contributed to 30,000 deaths in the UK, according to the Royal College of Physicians last year. (PA wire)
Studies have found that high exposure to air pollution can accelerate the onset of neurological and psychiatric disorders such as dystonia and myasthenia gravis by about two to five years. Schizophrenia was similarly affected, with the age of onset decreasing by about 2.4 to 3.8 percent.
Excessive exposure to air pollution contributes to accelerating the average age onset of a significant number of 78 chronic diseases, with hypertension, diabetes, and asthma emerging as the top three causes.
This is not the first study to examine how air pollution is associated with the risk of chronic diseases, but few papers have investigated how air pollution causes people to develop these diseases at a younger age.
One writer said: guardian: “Our research shows that air pollution is not only a risk factor for getting sick, but also acts as a silent accelerator that robs individuals of their healthiest years.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on countries around the world to improve air quality in 2021 to reduce the “huge health burden of exposure to air pollution around the world.”
The European Energy Agency estimates that 94 percent of the urban population is exposed to fine particulate matter. (Elizabeth Dalziel/Greenpeace)
Although air pollution continues to decline across Europe, the European Energy Agency estimates that 94 percent of urban populations are still exposed to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), the pollutant most harmful to human health, above WHO guideline levels.
The Royal College of Physicians warned last year that air pollution is estimated to cause the equivalent of 30,000 deaths in the UK in 2025 and cost more than £27 billion a year.
The university compared last year’s air pollution situation with 2019. Healthcare costs, lost productivity and reduced quality of life cost the UK more than £27 billion in 2019. The government estimated that between 29,000 and 43,000 deaths in the UK in 2019 were linked to air pollution.
They warned that annual costs could still reach £30 billion a year in 2040, even though exposure to pollutants is expected to fall in coming years under current government policies, including net zero.
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Poor air quality takes away from people’s health and costs the NHS millions of dollars in additional treatment for lung disease and asthma.
“That is why the government remains committed to improving air quality to benefit public health, the environment and the economy.
“We have set new air quality targets to reduce exposure to harmful particles by nearly a third by 2030 and improve lives across the country. In parallel, we are working on reforms in areas such as simplifying industrial permitting to reduce emissions and tightening standards for new wood stoves to reduce health impacts.”
