Air Pollution Makes Earth Dwellers Even Dumber –Study

Submitted by a reader

Let’s face it, you must be cognitively challenged to emit so much pollution in the first place!

Prolonged exposure to polluted air has a significant impact on our cognitive abilities, especially in older men, according to a new study.

Breathing dirty air causes a “steep reduction” in scores on verbal and math tests, says the report.

“Most of the population in developing countries live in places with unsafe air. Utilizing variations in transitory and cumulative air pollution exposures for the same individuals over time in China, we provide evidence that polluted air may impede cognitive ability as people become older, especially for less educated men, the report claims.

“Cutting annual mean concentration of particulate matter smaller than 10 μm (PM10) in China to the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard (50 μg/m³) would move people from the median to the 63rd percentile (verbal test scores) and the 58th percentile (math test scores), respectively. The damage on the aging brain by air pollution likely imposes substantial health and economic costs, considering that cognitive functioning is critical for the elderly for both running daily errands and making high-stake decisions.”

Air pollution linked to diabetes

Researchers found that air pollution contributed to 3.2 million new diabetes cases, or 14% of the global total in 2016. In the US, where 30 million adults have diabetes, air pollution results in over 150,000 new cases of diabetes each year.

The diagnosed cases of diabetes almost quadrupled between 1980 and 2014, jumping from 108 million to 422 million cases, WHO reported.

How many people breathe polluted air?

Nine out of every 10 people on the planet breathe air containing high levels of pollutants, with Africa and Asia being the worst affected areas, WHO reported earlier this year.

Air pollution was responsible for an estimated 9 million deaths in 2015, according to medical research.

“Ambient air pollution alone caused some 4.2 million deaths in 2016, while household air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels and technologies caused an estimated 3.8 million deaths in the same period,” according to WHO.

“Many of the world’s megacities exceed WHO’s guideline levels for air quality by more than 5 times, representing a major risk to people’s health,” says WHO.

 

 

Fat is Fashionable

U.S. Obesity Epidemic Growing Like Cancer

The following image was prepared by FIRE-EARTH in conjunction with an earlier post: U.S. Obesity Epidemic Exploding Like Wildfire

Obesity Trends among U.S. Adults

2011 Map for Percent of Obese (BMI > 30) in U.S. Adults. Source: FIRE-EARTH (Based on data provided by TFAH; original template by BRFSS, CDC).

U.S. ADULT OBESITY RANKINGS (by State)

Note: 1 = Highest rate of adult obesity, 51 = lowest rate of adult obesity. Rankings are based on combining three years of data (2008-2010) from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to “stabilize” data for comparison purposes. This methodology, recommended by the CDC, compensates for any potential anomalies or usual changes due to the specific sample in any given year in any given state.  States with statistically significant (p<0.05) increases for one year are noted with an asterisk (*), states with statistically significant increases for two years in a row are noted with two asterisks (**), states with statistically significant increases for three years in a row are noted with three asterisks (***). Additional information about methodologies and confidence intervals is available in the report.  Individuals with a body mass index (BMI) (a calculation based on weight and height ratios) of 30 or higher are considered obese.

1. Mississippi (34.4%); 2. Alabama (32.3%); 3. West Virginia* (32.2%); 4. Tennessee (31.9%); 5. Louisiana (31.6%); 6. Kentucky** (31.5%); 7. Oklahoma** (31.4%); 8. South Carolina* (30.9%); 9. Arkansas (30.6%); 10. Michigan* (30.5%); 11. Missouri* (30.3%); 12. Texas** (30.1%); 13. Ohio (29.6%); 14. North Carolina (29.4%); 15. Indiana* (29.1%); 16. Kansas** (29.0%); 17. (tie) Georgia (28.7%); and South Dakota (28.7%); 19. Pennsylvania (28.5%); 20. Iowa (28.1%); 21. (tie) Delaware (28.0%); and North Dakota (28.0%); 23. Illinois** (27.7%); 24. Nebraska (27.6%); 25. Wisconsin (27.4%); 26. Maryland (27.1%); 27. Maine** (26.5%); 28. Washington (26.4%); 29. Florida** (26.1%); 30. (tie) Alaska (25.9%); and Virginia (25.9%); 32. Idaho (25.7%); 33. (tie) New Hampshire (25.6%); and New Mexico (25.6%); 35. (tie) Arizona (25.4%); Oregon (25.4%); and Wyoming (25.4%); 38. Minnesota (25.3%); 39. Nevada (25.0%); 40. California (24.8%); 41. New York (24.7%); 42. Rhode Island** (24.3%); 43. New Jersey (24.1%); 44. Montana (23.8%); 45. Vermont** (23.5%); 46. Utah (23.4%); 47. Hawaii (23.1%); 48. Massachusetts** (22.3%); 49. Connecticut (21.8%); 50. District of Columbia (21.7%); 51. Colorado* (19.8%). [Full report available at TFAH]

Related Links

• U.S. Obesity Epidemic Exploding Like Wildfire

U.S. Obesity Epidemic Exploding Like Wildfire

How big is too gross?

U.S. obesity rates have climbed over the past year

In 1995, the obesity rate in the U.S. was below 15 percent.  Today, at least two out of three states, a total of 38 states, have obesity rates above 25 percent, and only one state has a rate slightly lower than 20 percent.

“Since 1995, when data was available for every state, obesity rates have doubled in seven states and increased by at least 90 percent in 10 others. Obesity rates have grown fastest in Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee, and slowest in Washington, D.C., Colorado, and Connecticut.” Said a news release by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH).

The following is a summary of points from a recent TFAH report on U.S. obesity:

• Adult Obesity has increased in 16 states over the past year
• Since 1995 rates have doubled or nearly doubled in 17 states
• Twelve states now have obesity rates higher than 30 percent, where one in three people is obese. (Only one state was above 30 percent in 2007).
• Obesity epidemic is exploding in the South, where nine of the 10 states with the highest adult obesity rates are located.
• Mississippi tops the adult obesity rate table for the seventh year running with an obesity rate of 34.4 percent. (Colorado with an obesity rate of 19.8 percent is the only state below 20 percent mark, though nothing to write home about).
• Obesity rates have exploded in Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee.

Maps for Percent of Obese (BMI > 30) in U.S. Adults (T to B) 1985, 1995 and 2009.

Other bulging stats:

• For the second year running, obesity rates have risen  in Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Rhode Island and Texas.

• For the third year running, more people in Florida, Kansas, Maine, Oklahoma and Vermont are getting fatter.
• States with obesity rates above 30 percent include: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
• Thirty-eight other states have obesity rates above 25 percent.

“Obesity has long been associated with other severe health problems, including diabetes and high blood pressure. New data in the report show how rates of both also have risen dramatically over the last two decades.”

• Diabetes rates have doubled in 8 states since 1995. (In 1995, only 4  states had diabetes rates above 6 percent.  Today, 43 states have diabetes rates over 7 percent, and 32 have rates above 8 percent).
• Hypertension rates in 37 states were over 20 percent, 20 years ago. Today, every state is over 20 percent, with 9 states over 30 percent.”

Childhood Obesity Epidemic. Image source: Obesity-net

The full report is posted on TFAH’s website at www.healthyamericans.org

From 2011 Disaster Calendar – June 27 entry

• [June 27, 2011]  Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.  SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,724 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History
• Global Disasters. The number of adults with diabetes has doubled globally over the last 30 years to about 350 million. The U.S. has seen a threefold increase.  “Diabetes is a long-lasting and disabling condition, and it’s going to be the largest cost for many health systems,” said the lead author of a report published in the in the British journal Lancet.
• Of the 347 million people with diabetes, 138 million live in China and India and another 36 million in the USA and Russia.
• Among OECD countries, diabetes and glucose levels were highest in USA, Greenland, Malta, New Zealand and Spain.

The Bad News: You Have Diabetes

Nearly 24 Million in the United States Have Diabetes: CDC

The Good News: Don’t need to have both your legs amputated

Diabetes now affects nearly 24 million people in the United States, an increase of more than 3 million in approximately two years, according to new 2007 prevalence data estimates released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This means that nearly 8 percent of the U.S. population has diabetes. [More precisely, about 13 percent of the adults in the ]

• Number of people with diabetes: About 24 million, or 8% of the population
• Cases of diagnosed diabetes: 18 million
• Undiagnosed cases: 6 million
• New cases diagnosed in adults in 2007: About 2 million
• Younger than 20 with diabetes: About quarter of a million
• Percent of population 60 years and older with diabetes in 2007: 25 percent.
• Percent of all adults in the U-S with diabetes: 12.5 percent

The seventh leading cause of death in the U-S, diabetes is a disease associated with high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production that causes sugar to build up in the body. It can cause serious health complications including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, and lower-extremity amputations.

For more information on diabetes, please visit http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes. To access the National Diabetes Fact Sheet and county-level estimates of diagnosed diabetes, click on the “data and trends” link at the left.