Drop in U.S. air pollution linked to longer lifespans (guess what- it works)

[underpants]

Source: CNN

Americans are living longer because the air they breathe is getting cleaner, a new study suggests. The average drop in pollution seen across 51 metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2000 appears to have added nearly five more months to people's lives, according to a study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Residents of cities that did the best job cleaning up air pollution showed the biggest jump in life span; for example, Pittsburgh's clearer air meant people there could expect to live nearly 10 months longer.

They plotted pollution data for 1979-1983 against 1978-1982 life expectancies for 217 counties within 51 metropolitan areas around the country. Then they compared 1999-2000 pollution data with 1997-2001 life expectancies. Finally, they looked at how changes in life expectancy related to changes in air pollution for both time periods.

Bert Brunekreef, Ph.D. , director of the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, said the current study could help encourage government and industry to address air pollution in parts of the world where it is a serious threat to health. "Showing public health benefits of changes in pollution is a strong message, comparable to studies documenting health benefits of smoking bans," he said via email.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, particulate matter 2.5 microns in size declined in the United States by an average of 11 percent between 2000 and 2007.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/21/healthmag.airpollution.lifespan/

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NBC Nightly News reported on this too

[ohio2007]

1. factories have been boarded up and moved to China where the air will kill ya

coincidence ?

[XemaSab]

3. Touche

n/t

[nyc 4 Biden]

2. Good news but I still feel like i'm breathing in some nasty smog here in nyc.

If I didn't care about looking like a weirdo I would wear an air filter face mask.

[ChromeFoundry]

5. kinda difficult to go into a bank wearing one of those :o)

[nyc 4 Biden]

7. Good point. lol

check this out...

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/01/masked_man_waits_in_lne_to_rob.html

[ChromeFoundry]

8. I'd also suggest you leave any weapons or toys that look

like weapons at home while visiting your bank! :O)

[Twist_U_Up]

4. The medias been telling us we are too fat .....

I wish they would make up my mind for me.

[CHIMO]

6. Guess

That this means that the older one becomes the less they pollute?
But what about the young? Does that mean that their proportion of the world should be reduced?

Not much wonder that we can't figure out why the world economy is in the dumps.