Study: air pollution brings heart risks (nearly equivalent to smoking)

[The Straight Story]

Study: air pollution brings heart risks

SEATTLE, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- A University of Washington study suggested that urban air pollution may be more dangerous to humans than previously believed.

The seven-year study of 58,600 postmenopausal women, printed in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that those women living in areas with the highest levels of pollution, including Cincinnati and Riverside, Calif., faced a 150 percent greater risk of heart disease than those breathing less polluted air, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The study said the risk posed by the pollution, specifically a dangerous variety of soot known as fine particulate matter, is nearly equivalent to the added risk of smoking cigarettes.

http://www.newsdaily.com/Science/UPI-1-20070201-15392200-bc-us-airpollution.xml

[itsmesgd]

1. cool, I'm picking up smoking again tomorrow

Is there anywhere left to smoke?

[devilgrrl]

2. No there isn't...

not even France. You're stuck breathing smoggy air in a metropolis near you!

[unpossibles]

3. gee, maybe that's the real cause of "second hand smoke related illness"

and as someone in Cinci, let me say "awesome"

</sarcasm>

[tandot]

4. So, smokers living in urban and polluted areas are doubly screwed?

[The Straight Story]

5. Naw, they build up a tolerance to it :) (nt)

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. ...

:rofl:

[blues90]

7. This is what always amazed me .

I understand people not wanting smoke during their diner or in their home or office space . But these same people are perfectly satisfied to sit for many hours a week in traffic jambs with their car being pumped with exhaust fumes and yet never see this as a hazzard .

[Kurovski]

8. This has been known for at least a decade.

Many health risks that are foisted upon the populace are diverted by the tobacco issue. The press focuses endlessly on the smoking risks--already well established--and avoids other factors that do not involve addiction or choice, but would indeed involve a change in how corporations do business.

Time to broaden the focus.

[High Plains]

9. We must ban the public use of automobiles.

If you want to destroy your own health, that's your right, but don't expect me to sit by idly and let your nasty habits affect my health. If you want to drive a car, do it in the privacy of your own home.

[Kurovski]

10. That's some good multi-layered humor there, but

the automobile industry and Big Oil fight tooth and nail against cleaner alternatives.

The funding for research is piss-poor at best, and public transportation, high-speed rail, and Amtrak go begging.

[Kurovski]

11. Kick(nt)

[AnOhioan]

12. Nobody tell the anti-smoking zealots out there.....

Their heads might just blow up when they realize that disease can occur from other sources.

[Kurovski]

13. Kick.(nt)