 |
| Photo: Marin/freedigitalimages.net |
The results revealed adult asthmatics who were exposed to heavy traffic pollution experienced an 80 per cent increase in symptoms and those exposed to wood smoke from wood fires experienced an 11 per cent increase in symptoms.
Asthma affects more than 300 million people worldwide and is one of the most chronic health conditions.
Dr John Burgess of the School of Population Health at the University of Melbourne and a co-author on the study said that it is now recommended that adults who suffer asthma should not live on busy roads and that the use of old wood heaters should be upgraded to newer heaters, to ensure their health does not worsen.
Traffic exhaust is thought to exacerbate asthma through airway inflammation. Particles from heavy vehicles exhaust have been shown to enhance allergic inflammatory responses in sensitised people who suffer asthma.
“Our study also revealed a connection between the inhalation of wood smoke exposure and asthma severity and that the use of wood for heating is detrimental to health in communities...where use of wood burning is common,” Dr Burgess said.
"Clean burning practices and the replacement of old polluting wood stoves by new ones are likely to minimise both indoor and outdoor wood smoke pollution and improve people's health," he said.
The study revealed no association between traffic pollution and wood smoke and the onset of asthma.
It was published in the journal Respirology.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment