Air Pollution Linked To Learning And Memory Problems, Depression

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From the 5 July 2011 Medical News Today item

 Long-term exposure to air pollution can lead to physical changes in the brain, as well as learning and memory problems and even depression, new research in mice suggests.

While other studies have shown the damaging effects of polluted air on the heart and lungs, this is one of the first long-term studies to show the negative impact on the brain, said Laura Fonken, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in neuroscience at Ohio State University.

“The results suggest prolonged exposure to polluted air can have visible, negative effects on the brain, which can lead to a variety of health problems,” Fonken said.

“This could have important and troubling implications for people who live and work in polluted urban areas around the world.”

The study appears online this week in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

A link to the abstract of the research article may be found here.
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• Air Pollution Tied to Brain Damage (newser.com)
• Indoor Air Pollution and Blood Pressure (iapnews.wordpress.com)

We Are What We Breathe: The Impacts of Air Pollution on Employment and Productivity – Up Front Blog – Brookings Institution

Excerpts from the report
We Are What We Breathe: The Impacts of Air Pollution on Employment and Productivity – Up Front Blog – Brookings Institution

The Impact of Air Pollution on Health and Productivity
Air pollutants are linked to higher rates of infant mortality, increased frequencies of low birth weight, greater risks of asthma attacks and other forms of respiratory sickness, and premature mortality among adults. The incidence of low birth weight has been associated with higher health care costs and reduced earnings later in life. More broadly, good health is also a requisite for being productive on the job, and thus air pollution also affects employment and productivity.

In an intriguing new paper, elevated ozone concentrations, even at levels well below current federal air quality standards, was found to reduce productivity of farm workers in California. Another study found that higher carbon monoxide concentrations result in increased school absences.

In short, air pollution has a direct impact on the health and productivity of today’s and tomorrow’s work force.

Related articles

• Shanghai air pollution reaches record levels – how to track air quality around the world (environmentaleducationuk.wordpress.com)
• Half of US population breathes polluted air: report (news.bioscholar.com)
• Asthma in the US: Growing Every Year (cdc.gov)
• The Link Between Air Pollution and Asthma (everydayhealth.com)

Annual Health Care Costs Rise Dramatically, Says New Study

Percent of Youth 4-17 ever diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: National Survey of Children's Health, 2003

Poor childhood health caused by environmental factors, such as air pollution and exposure to toxic chemicals, cost the United States $76.6 billion in 2008, according to authors of a new study in the May issue of Health Affairs. This price tag represents a dramatic increase in recent years, rising from 2.8 percent of total health care costs in 1997 to 3.5 percent in 2008…

Click here for a Medical News Today summary of the research article (May 3, 2011)

Excerpts

Researchers used recent data to estimate the number of environmentally induced conditions in children and then calculated the annual cost for direct medical care and indirect costs, such as lost productivity resulting from parents’ caring for sick children. They found that the aggregate cost of environmental illness in children was $76.6 billion in 2008 dollars.

The study provides an update to an analysis of 1997 data that documented $54.9 billion in annual costs of environmentally contributable childhood diseases in the United States. In comparing the two studies, researchers found that diminished exposure to lead and reductions in costs for asthma care were offset by diseases newly identified as environmentally induced, including attention deficit disorder,[Editor Flahiff’s note: see above map] and the added burden of mercury exposure. This toxic metal, from contaminated fish and coal-fired power plants, can harm the developing brain and is associated with intellectual disability.

Key findings from the study:

– Lead poisoning cost $50.9 billion
– Autism cost $7.9 billion
– Intellectual disability cost $5.4 billion
– Exposure to mercury (methyl mercury) cost $5.1 billion
– Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder cost $5.0 billion
– Asthma cost $2.2 billion
– Childhood cancer cost $95.0 million

Related Articles

• US must strengthen efforts to restrict chemicals that threaten health, say researchers (scienceblog.com)
• Asthma Rates on the Rise in U.S. (webmd.com)
• Protect our kids from toxic mercury (cnn.com)
• US must strengthen efforts to restrict chemicals that threaten health, say researchers (medicalxpress.com)

New free, hands-on tool supports sustainable living choices (nitrogen footprint measure)

New free, hands-on tool supports sustainable living choices (nitrogen footprint measure)

From the February 22 2011 Eureka news alert

People who want to eat healthy and live sustainably have a new way to measure their impact on the environment: a Web-based tool [http://n-print.org/sites/n-print.org/files/footprint_sql/index.html#/home] that calculates an individual’s “nitrogen footprint.” The device was created by University of Virginia environmental scientist James N. Galloway; Allison Leach, a staff research assistant at U.Va.; and colleagues from the Netherlands and the University of Maryland.

The calculator is a project of the International Nitrogen Initiative, a global network of scientists who share research and data on the nitrogen dilemma. The project was announced Feb. 19 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.

What’s the nitrogen dilemma? Though some residents of the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico likely are familiar with it, it’s unknown to most Americans outside the agricultural world. For the last 30 years, Galloway and other leading scientists have been noting fish kills in coastal areas, threats to human health as a result of air and water pollution, and changes to global biodiversity and climate. This tool is one of their attempts to foster more understanding of nitrogen’s role in our lives.

“Nitrogen, as any farmer knows, is essential to plant life,” said Galloway, associate dean for the sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at U.Va. and the Sidman P. Poole Professor of Environmental Sciences. “But the widespread use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer to boost crop production has resulted in excess nitrogen coming off farms – essentially adding unwanted, unneeded fertilizer to our natural systems, with disastrous results. The combustion of fossil fuels adds even more nitrogen to our environment. It’s a largely untold story.”

Scientists are calling nitrogen pollution a major environmental problem that includes significant damage to air and water quality in places such as the Chesapeake Bay, where the federal government has dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to reducing nitrogen runoff from farms and industry. Similarly, nitrogen runoff from Midwestern farms that ultimately flows into the Gulf of Mexico is largely responsible for toxic algal blooms that have suffocated coastal waters, leading to hypoxic zones, resulting in the loss of fish and shellfish.

To raise awareness, Galloway, a pioneering nitrogen scientist, organized a global team of experts to develop the footprint calculator as an educational tool – one he and his colleagues hope will both raise the profile of the nitrogen issue and galvanize people into action. By measuring what and how much you eat, as well as other factors like how you travel, the calculator shows your impact on the nitrogen cycle.

The website also makes recommendations for how to lessen your “nitrogen footprint.” They are similar to other sustainable living choices: reduce airplane travel, choose renewable energy and eat less meat, particularly beef (since cattle consume massive quantities of farmed feed, which requires much fertilizer). Professors and lecturers are already using the tool in classrooms to teach students how one individual can alter – and help restore – a natural nitrogen cycle.

“Solving the nitrogen dilemma is a major challenge of our time,” Leach said. “By calculating our individual impact, and taking small steps to reduce it, we can all play a part – and send a strong message to our nation’s leaders that we want this issue taken seriously.”

This new footprint calculator is the first in a series of research tools, known as N-Print [http://www.n-print.org/], which Galloway and his team are developing to connect the production of nitrogen with the policies used to manage it. The team is currently creating a similar calculator for farmers and other nitrogen users, as well as a tool for policymakers that will provide regional nitrogen emission ceilings, which will show how much nitrogen can be released in these regions without major negative environmental impact.

“There are readily available solutions to reducing nitrogen pollution,” Galloway said. “By connecting consumers, producers and policymakers, we can solve it.”

Chemical fertilizer use and combustion engines are the main sources of nitrogen pollution. Scientists who are recording dramatic changes to ecosystems from the U.S. to China say the disruption of the naturally occurring cycle of nitrogen through ecosystems due to human activity leads the list of global tipping points [http://bit.ly/95eWNn] and have named it a top threat to global biodiversity. It contributes to human health problems, water pollution, ozone layer depletion, smog, climate change and coastal dead zones. Nitrous oxide, created mostly from grain and meat production, is also a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

 

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This project is supported by the Agouron Institute, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.Va., and the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands.

For information, visit: www.n-print.org/.

 

 

The EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program 2009 Data is Now Available

The EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program 2009 Data is Now Available

 

Image via WikipediaFrom the National Library of Medicine listerv item:

 

 

The National Library of Medicine TOXMAP (http://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov) and TOXNET TRI (http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?TRI) now include the 2009 Toxics Release Inventory data (TRI), the most current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data available.  http://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/current_data/index.html

20,446 facilities reported to the EPA TRI program in 2009, with 77,610 submissions.

A complete list of TRI chemicals required to be reported to the EPA can be found at http://www.epa.gov/tri/trichemicals/index.htm.

TOXMAP maps the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) chemicals reported to the EPA, as required by the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA).    http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/lcra.html

TOXMAP covers on-site TRI releases only and also includes EPA Superfund data. http://www.epa.gov/superfund/

TRI contains information on the annual estimated releases of toxic chemicals to the environment and is based on data collected by the EPA. Mandated by the Pollution Prevention Act, TOXNET TRI data covers air, water, land, and underground injection releases, as well as transfers to waste sites, and waste treatment methods and efficiency, as reported by certain industrial facilities around the United States. TRI also includes data related to source reduction and recycling.

Visiting the Toxics Release Inventory Web site for the first time?

Try these Web pages first. Also, contact a reference librarian for assistance. Librarians at public libraries are helpful. Also consider academic libraries. Call ahead to see what services they provide to the general public. You will probably be pleasantly surprised!

• TRI FAQ’s
• EPA Learn the Issues (including Air , Wastes and Pollution, and Human Health)
• TRI Explorer “is recommended for beginner to advanced users of TRI data. This on-line tool generates reports based on facilities, chemicals, geographic areas, or industry type (NAICS code) at the county, state, and national level. It provides information for on- and off-site disposal or other releases, transfers off-site, and other waste management data.”
• Envirofacts “is recommended for beginner to advanced users of a wide variety of EPA datasets including TRI. EPA created the Envirofacts Warehouse to provide the public with direct access to information contained in its databases on Air, Chemicals, Facility Information, Grants/Funding, Hazardous Waste, Risk Management Plans, Superfund, Toxic Releases.”
• TRI Tools includes the above two links and more
• TRI Resources for data users

Air pollutants from fireplaces and wood-burning stoves raise health concerns

Air pollutants from fireplaces and wood-burning stoves raise health concerns

From the February 5, 2011 Eureka news alert

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5, 2011 — With millions of people warding off winter’s chill with blazing fireplaces and wood-burning stoves, scientists are raising red flags about the potential health effects of the smoke released from burning wood. Their study, published in the American Chemical Society‘s (ACS’) journal, Chemical Research in Toxicology, found that the invisible particles inhaled into the lungs from wood smoke may have several adverse health effects. It is among 39 peer-reviewed scientific journals published by ACS, the world’s largest scientific society.

Steffen Loft, Ph.D., and colleagues cite the abundant scientific evidence linking inhalation of fine particles of air pollution — so-called “particulate matter” — from motor vehicle exhaust, coal-fired electric power plants, and certain other sources with heart disease, asthma, bronchitis and other health problems. However, relatively little information of that kind exists about the effects of wood smoke particulate matter (WSPM), even though millions of people around the world use wood for home heating and cooking and routinely inhale WSPM.

The scientists analyzed and compared particulate matter in air from the center of a village in Denmark where most residents used wood stoves to a neighboring rural area with few wood stoves, as well as to pure WSPM collected from a wood stove. Airborne particles in the village and pure WSPM tended to be of the most potentially hazardous size — small enough to be inhaled into the deepest parts of the lungs. WSPM contained higher levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which include “probable” human carcinogens. When tested on cultures of human cells, WSPM also caused more damage to the genetic material, DNA; more inflammation; and had greater activity in turning on genes in ways linked to disease.

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The authors acknowledged funding from the National Research Councils, Denmark; and the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.

DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/tx100407m

 

Related article

Clean Air Agency bans burning in wood stoves

 

Take the Care for Your Air Tour

Take Care of Your Air Tour

Get a quick glimpse of some of the most important ways to protect the air in your home by touring the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) House. Room-by-room, you’ll learn about the key pollutants and how to address them.

You may take the tour using the Flash supported video, or through the text version.

The Take Care of Your Air tour is provided by the US Environmental Protection Agency.