Clean Solutions To Dirty Air
The link between pollution & psychiatric disorders, and household plants that help. By Harlow A Weldon.
Globally as more people become aware, concerned & affected by a range of mental disorders we discuss, The link between pollution & psychiatric disorders?
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Out In The Open Toxic air, toxic to your health An environment of toxins & it’s emerging effects
Summary: Polluted air has been strongly linked to psychotic disorders. Studies reveal higher rates of bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. Exposure to air pollution during the first ten years of life is associated with a more than two-fold increased risk of schizophrenia and personality disorders.
Source: PLOS
"The increasing prevalence of mental disorders is a major global problem that affects millions of people every year, in addition to the personal suffering, psychiatric disorders are associated with significant social costs” Khan, Ripoll and Antonsen (2019)
Researchers are increasingly directing their focus on the effects of environmental insults on psychiatric and neurological conditions originally motivated from data sets taken from events such as the mortality surge during the 1030 Meuse Valley fog and 1952 Great
London fog. Emerging evidence from the results have given rise to a new study available within the open-access journal PLOS Biology published August 20. 19 Academic researchers analyse two large data sets from the US and Denmark and conclude possible links between the exposure to environmental pollutants and an increase in the prevalence of psychiatric disorders globally.
Emerging links: The Eastern China smog in 2013 and the New Delhi smog in 2017 saw air pollution measurements reach record levels, conditions that led to significant increases in morbidity and mortality rates. Such events have led to considerable debate, along with an upsurge of environmental research, new government regulation (e.g., the Clean Air Act of 1956 in the UK and the Chinese Air
Pollution Control Law in 2015), and heightened public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health. Increasing interest in the effect of pollution on neuropsychiatric disorders has only recently begun to direct attention toward the brain, with in vitro and animal model studies lending mechanistic insight into how air pollution components can be neurotoxic
Investigative researchers found that combinations of pollutants in tainted air was associated with higher rates of bipolar disorder and major depression in both US and Danish populations. The trend appeared more prevalently in Denmark, where developing children from birth to ten years show exposure to polluted air predicted a more than two-fold increase in schizophrenia and personality disorders. “In our exploratory analysis we found that poor air quality is associated with apparently higher rates of bipolar disorder and
major depression in both the US and Denmark,” said computational biologist Atif Khan, the first author of the new study. “The physical environment – in particular air quality – warrants more research to better understand how our environment is contributing to neurological and psychiatric disorders.”
It is putatively assumed that mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia ‘develop due to a complex interplay of genetic predispositions and life experiences or exposures, however genetics alone does not account entirely for variations in mental health and disease'. Researchers have long suspected that genetic, neurochemical and environmental factors interact at different levels to affect the onset, severity and progression of these illnesses.
Burgeoning evidence is providing further insight into how compounds within air pollution can be neurotoxic to the brain. Recent studies on animal model studies suggest environmental agents like ambient small particulate matter (fine dust) travel to the brain through the nose and lungs enflaming and damaging pathways. Animals exposed to high pollution have also shown signs of cognitive impairment and depression-like behavioral symptoms.
The study mentioned supports the need for further investigation into the causations of psychiatric disorders through neuro damage by pollutant air particles, the more information researchers continue to provide the more we can action preventative measures so it’s not all bad news.
With such dirty dirty air, here at UDAV.world we have taken some time to gather five our favourite houseplants that filter air, so heres our countdown 1. Spider plant - filters out formaldehyde, xylene and toluene 2. Areca palm - great purifying plant for general cleanliness, also known as acting as a humidifier. 3. Golden pathos - filters out benzene,
formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene and toluene 4. Aloe vera - filters out benzene, formaldehyde and converts CO2 to O2 during the night instead of the day - so put one in your bedroom! And 5. Mother in laws tongue - filters out benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene and toluene.
Having air filtering plants can make all the difference in the air quality you have in your home. More now than ever it is important for us to do the small things that could have a positive impact on our health.
So take our advice grab a handful of dirt and get planting.
Funding: This work was funded by the NordForsk project 75007: Understanding the Link Between Air Pollution and Distribution of Related Health Impacts and Welfare in the Nordic countries (NordicWelfAir); the DARPA Big Mechanism program under ARO contract W911NF1410333; by National Institutes of Health grants R01HL122712, 1P50MH094267, and U01HL108634-01; and by a gift from Liz and Kent Dauten. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. ABOUT THIS NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH ARTICLE Source: PLOS Media Contacts: Andrey Rzhetsky – PLOS Image Source: The image is in the public domain. Original Research: Open access “Environmental pollution is associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders in the US and Denmark”. Khan A, PlanaRipoll O, Antonsen S, Brandt J, Geels C, Landecker H, et al. PLOS Biology. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000353 Abstract Environmental pollution is associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders in the US and Denmark The search for the genetic factors underlying complex neuropsychiatric disorders has proceeded apace in the past decade. Despite some advances in identifying genetic variants associated with psychiatric disorders, most variants have small individual contributions to risk. By contrast, disease risk increase appears to be less subtle for disease-predisposing environmental insults. In this study, we sought to identify associations between environmental pollution and risk of neuropsychiatric disorders. We present exploratory analyses of 2 independent, very large datasets: 151 million unique individuals, represented in a United States insurance claims dataset, and 1.4 million unique individuals documented in Danish national treatment registers. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) county-level environmental quality indices (EQIs) in the US and individual-level exposure to air pollution in Denmark were used to assess the association between pollution exposure and the risk of neuropsychiatric disorders. These results show that air pollution is significantly associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders. We hypothesize that pollutants affect the human brain via neuroinflammatory pathways that have also been shown to cause depression-like phenotypes in animal studies.
In today's world, everyone carries in their bloodstream a toxic assortment of dozens of industrially produced chemicals. Toxic Cocktail: How Chemical Pollution Is Poisoning Our Brains makes a warning call to action. Toxic Cocktail explains the developmental processes and chemical disruption associated with thyroid hormone, discusses recent activity for environmental regulations and industrial lobbying in the United States and European Union, and makes pertinent suggestions for legislators and individuals-providing a "selfhelp" guide-for reducing exposure and limiting the dangerous effects of the multitude of chemicals on brain development.
This A-to-Z guide illuminates the numerous health benefits of 50 common, easy-to-grow houseplants along with detailed care instructions and beautiful illustrations of each plant.
This text explains why we experience indoor air pollution problems (such as Sick Building Syndrome) and how houseplants can help combat specific pollutants, including how and why they do it, and how to care for them. Each houseplant is rated according to its overall and specific effectiveness.