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Best veiw with
Firefox 3
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Air Pollution Stoke Risk
In the heating up of the earth, ultrafine chemicals and particles from
all the man-made matter spread around our environments and we breath
them in, yet no species has ever been tested, as that of man, at this
new enhanced level.
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Low levels of air pollution can raise stroke risk
Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:03 PM GMT
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Low environmental levels of
fine and ultrafine particulate matter, as well as carbon dioxide,
increase the risk of stroke, but the heightened risk occurs only
during warm weather months, Finnish researchers report.
Previous research has linked air pollution with a higher risk of
fatal and nonfatal stroke, according to a report in the rapid access
issue of the journal Stroke. However, the Finnish study is the
first, to the authors' knowledge, to examine the impact on stroke
risk of ultrafine particulate pollution, defined as molecules with a
diameter of less than 2.5 microns.
Dr. Jaana Kettunen, from the National Public Health Institute in
Kuopio, and colleagues compared air pollution levels from 1998 to
2004 with the number of stroke deaths among elderly subjects living
in Helsinki, a city known to have relatively little air pollution.
A total of 1,304 stroke deaths in the warm season and 1,961 in the
cold season were logged in during the study period.
During the warm season, every 6 microgram per cubic meter increase
in current-day levels of fine particulate air pollution was
associated with a 6.9 percent increase in deaths from stroke. The
corresponding stroke death rate for previous-day fine particulate
increases was 7.4 percent. However, particulate air pollution had no
effect on stroke during the cold season. Previous-day levels of
ultrafine particles plus carbon monoxide were also linked to stroke
mortality. However, Kettunen commented in a statement, "these
associations were less robust" than those seen with fine particulate
pollution. "Coarse particles were not statistically significantly
associated with stroke deaths," she added.
"Our results suggest that the levels of combustion-originating
particles rather than coarse particles explain the association
between particulate matter and stroke," the authors conclude. "Thus,
regulatory efforts should be focused on reducing emissions of
combustion particles."
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The
The
Labors in the Spirits of
Science
Living on the Lost Planet 
