The Positive Health Benefits of Negative Ions

By admin on December 30, 2012

Air pollution is a serious, though often unrecognized health problem. Epidemiological studies consistently point to a direct link between urban air pollution – especially particulate pollution created by combustion powered vehicles and power generation plants – and cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases. (1) Long-term exposure to particulate pollution – tiny particles smaller than 10 microns (a human hair is 70 microns wide) – is known to increase illness and death rates from lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and emphysema. Additionally, exposure to other airborne pollutants, including sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3), is associated with development of asthma, bronchitis, and respiratory infections. (2)

European researchers investigated the risks of long-term exposure to traffic pollution in a study examining 5000 volunteers selected from the ongoing Netherlands Cohort study on Diet and Cancer (NLCS). They discovered that people living near major roads (and therefore exposed to higher levels of traffic-related air pollution) were more likely to die from cardiopulmonary disease or lung cancer than their rural peers, leading the authors to conclude that ‘long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution may shorten life expectancy. (3)

Air Pollution Linked to Heart Damage

In addition to causing lung damage, air pollution is now also recognized as a threat to cardiovascular health. Reporting in the March 6, 2002 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers examined long-term health data on 500,000 individuals to compare increases in air pollution levels with incidence of death. They discovered that when air pollution levels suddenly increased, in addition to expected increases in deaths from asthma, pneumonia, and emphysema, there was an unexpected increase in the number of deaths related to heart attacks and stroke. Most surprising was the finding that when air pollution levels rose, so did deaths from all causes, not just those related to the heart and lungs (Fig. 1). (4)

One possible explanation for the increase in cardiovascular-related deaths is that air pollution causes oxidative stress that, in turn, triggers an inflammatory response in the lungs that leads to the release of chemicals that impair heart function and blood pressure.

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