In the last five or six years people have started to take air pollution much more seriously. Most countries have adopted a no-smoking policy within their public areas and there have been a good deal of attempts to lessen the amount of pollution being pumped into the air of major urban centres. It’s a slow process but here in the UK we’re already seeing positive changes. The smoking ban has been in force for just under six years and the number of hospitalizations for asthma in children has plummeted and continues to drop each year. This is fantastic when you consider that before the ban, it had been steadily rising for years.
Though things might be getting better in terms of hospitalizations in the UK, the rate of asthma (the amount of people who’re contracting the condition) is on the rise. This is especially true in the USA. Though the air quality has actually improved in a lot of places this seems to have just made things worse all over and though less children are exposed to tobacco smoke or air pollutants more and more seem to be contracting asthma each year. It’s a bit of a mystery. For a long time scientists blamed these pollutants for the boom in asthma but it now appears that this simply cannot be the cause, or at least it can’t be the sole cause.
Researchers are now looking at ozone as a potential factor. Though in normal quantities it wouldn’t do any damage at all, in high enough concentrations ozone and exposure for a long enough period of time ozone is thought to be capable of stimulating an asthmatic response.
The research into this is only just beginning and as such it could be a while before we see any real advances in our understanding of asthma. Time will tell and before it does, remember to keep your inhaler on you at all times just to be safe!
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