Air pollution reduces the lung function of children, research has also suggested.<\/p>\n
In the largest study of its kind, University of Leicester experts calculated the PM10 exposure of nearly 14,000 children between 1990 and 2008.<\/p>\n
The team, who will present their findings at the same conference, looked at how it affected each trimester of pregnancy, as well as during infancy and childhood.<\/p>\n
Results showed children who had been exposed to high levels of PM10 \u2013 from road traffic \u2013 had reduced lung function by the age of eight.<\/p>\n
Professor Anna Hansell, study co-author, said: ‘We found exposure to road traffic PM10 in very early life showed harmful associations with lung function in eight-year-olds.<\/p>\n
‘Associations were stronger among boys, children whose mother had a lower education level or smoked during pregnancy.<\/p>\n
‘Our findings suggest air pollution in pregnancy and early life has important impacts on lung function in early childhood.\u2019<\/p>\n
She added: \u2018[The reduced function] may affect children’s development and potentially also their long-term health trajectory.’<\/p>\n
However, the researchers did not see similar links between traffic pollution and lung function in children at the age of 15 years.<\/p>\n
It is believed this is because of a crackdown on pollution over the study peiod.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Professor Hansell said: ‘We think this may be because air pollution levels, particularly diesel emissions, were reducing over the time that the lung function was increasing in these analyses.<\/p>\n
‘However, it is also possible that the effect of air pollution is small and that lung growth is able to outpace the adverse effects by teenage years.’<\/p>\n
She said it was unclear how traffic pollution could affect childhood lung function, particularly during pregnancy.<\/p>\n
One mechanism could be that particles cross the placenta and disturb the development of the growing foetus’s lungs.<\/p>\n
Jorgen Vestbo, professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Manchester, said the findings highlight the dangers of being exposed to filthy air from the start of life.<\/p>\n
Professor Vestbo, who is also chair of the European Respiratory Society’s Advocacy Council, added: ‘Lots of previous research has shown that in the long term, outdoor air pollution can reduce life expectancy, affect lung development, increase asthma incidence and lead to other chronic respiratory diseases.<\/p>\n
‘Breathing is the most basic human function required to sustain life. We cannot give up the fight for the right to breathe clean air, and we must continue to apply pressure on policymakers to ensure that maximum pollutant levels indicated by the World Health Organization are not breached across our cities and towns in order to protect the health of young babies, as well as the wider population.’<\/p>\n
Researchers looked at the youngsters during pregnancy and at the ages of zero to six months, seven to 12 months and then annually to the age of 15 years.<\/p>\n
They measured the volume of air that children could force out in one second and the maximum amount of air they could exhale after taking the deepest possible breath.<\/p>\n
Children took the tests at the age of eight and 15 years and scientists compared their results to their exposure to PM10.<\/p>\n
Every one microgram per cubic metre of air (mcg\/m3) of PM10 during the first trimester of pregnancy was linked to a 0.8 per cent reduction in lung function.<\/p>\n
The researchers found a similar trend during the second and third trimesters, over the whole pregnancy, and up to the age of eight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Air pollution reduces the lung function of children, research has also suggested. In the largest study of its kind, University of Leicester experts calculated the PM10 exposure of nearly 14,000 children between 1990 and 2008. The team, who will present their findings at the same conference, looked at how it affected each trimester of pregnancy, Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}