Air Pollution: The Biggest Threat to Your Life

There is a large number of environmental causes of deaths in India but air pollution has become the biggest threat to human life nowadays. Do you know, with every breath, we take the nth amount of polluted particles into our body. These pollutants have very adverse effects on the human body and the death rate of humans due to pollution is increasing every year. Though these particles seem to be very small in concentration the damage they make to our body is more than you have ever thought.

According to the reports stated by Lancet, India was ranked No.1 in deaths caused by pollution in 2015. It is very sad to know that 2.5 million deaths were reported which is three times more deaths than that caused due to AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Data collected by NASA have also recorded 13% increase in the levels of pollution between 2010 and 2015. This unfair means of death was faced by people of every age group. Though, children were the easiest target of air pollution because their breathing capability is much higher than that of adults. The result of which, they inhale more of this life-threatening particles too!

It is the most common myth that this pollution is harmful only to Lungs and causes lung cancer or asthma, but the fact is, this has become the main reason behind a number of diseases. Continue reading to know the 5 most common diseases caused due to air pollution:

1. Kidney Damage: Previously, it was an unrecognized factor of air pollution but now it has been proved that high level of PM 2.5 (tiny fragments of pollution) has become the main reason of kidney damage these days.
2. Cardiovascular Diseases: This disease is the most common in India which has a number of factors including hypertension, rising cholesterol levels, and smoking. But now studies have shown that air pollution is also one of the factors of this life taking disease.
3. Brain Damage: Prolonged exposure to these harmful pollutants have now become one of the reasons for the brain disorders or damage. According to the reports of UNICEF, there are 17 million infants who are breathing toxic air which affects the brain development.
4. Birth Defects: If a pregnant woman intakes a lot of polluted air before or after conceiving then the danger of birth defects most likely to happen. These defects include: cleft lip or palate or abnormal hearts
5. Mental Illness: The polluted particles that we intake with every breath, leads to the depression; anxiety; Alzheimer and other mental illnesses. This is the reason most of the children lack their academic performance as well.

This was just the most common diseases but the list does not end here. There is a large number of diseases and we are still not even aware of many more. As we say, act before it’s too late, so we need to put a full stop to these adverse conditions before it gets worse. Read about how to cope with air pollution and stay safe in our upcoming blog post.

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