The Truth About Pollution And Our Lungs

We’ve known pollution was a bad thing for a very long time indeed. The thing which we weren’t aware of is that it’s actually bad for us as well as the environment. Quite why we didn’t put this together earlier is a mystery as pollution is essentially airborne poison which sounds pretty dangerous to me! A lot of cities are now approaching dangerous levels of pollution and there are a lot of areas in those cities which suffer from high levels a lot of the time. It’s said that London itself suffers from 12 ‘smog’ days a year, in which the levels of pollution are much higher and almost visible.

Illustrating this danger is the startling figure of 4,000 additional deaths per year in London which can be attributed to air pollution alone. This is roughly one in twenty of all deaths in the city. If you consider that these are people who are dying before their time simply because of the air they breathe, you can understand just how scary that number is. These deaths are generally adult but it’s also been shown that children are more profoundly affected by the pollution levels .

Stark evidence has been shown which suggests that children who are regularly exposed to high doses of pollution can end up with smaller lungs by the time they’re fully grown. This will stunt their lung function for the rest of their lives and put them more at risk of respiratory conditions. Asthma, one of the most common and most dangerous of the respiratory conditions has been directly linked to pollution. Children who grow up in areas which are exposed to high levels of chemicals are much more likely to contract the illness and will be hospitalised much more regularly as a result.

Doctors and other health professionals are recommending not allowing your children outside on the days with the highest pollution levels as this might help protect their lungs.