Air Pollution and Respiratory Tract Infections

You. It's great to be with everybody once again. So this video I'd like to talk about is air pollution and health. Obviously COVID 19 is the forefront of everybody's mind. But I want to, as we start pivoting towards resilience, how do you make yourself maximally healthy so that when you get exposed to the storms of life illnesses, family stressors, life stressors, that you can maintain your own personal health and just kind of sail through these storms. You'll be shaken from side to side, but maintain your health. And so air quality is a huge, huge factor in that. So what I'd like to do is review a few studies talking about air quality and illness, specifically in regards to COVID 19. But a brief summary I think for air quality is super important. One we already know from data from noaa. NOAA is the organization that tracks hurricanes every hurricane season. The we know from them that air quality, there's a direct correlation with air quality pollutants and things like rheumatoid antibodies, which is an autoimmune issue. Cardiovascular disease, there's information from Vanderbilt looking at how many particles in the air. And it's usually combustion particles like cars, diesel fuel, coal, these things that, you know, in third world countries or other countries, they use a lot of wood. It's wood burning, inhaling those particles. But we know there's a correlation with cardiovascular disease. And then actually from UCLA, from some research from Dr. Brunson out there, we know there's a correlation with a risk for inhalational Alzheimer's. You inhale micro particles of basically pollution and it causes brain inflammation. So this is something new. This is not a new concept. So let's pivot a little bit and talk about COVID 19. And these studies will actually, the actual links will be posted below where these things are put. And we're going to be putting some of these articles out on social media as well with little summaries I've put out there and the actual links. So if you want to actually get these, either look below or start following us on social media as they get pushed out over the next several weeks. The first one is actually I'm looking at the United Kingdom and they looked at about 80% of people living in urban areas that are exposed to high levels of. Are being exposed to high levels of pollution higher than the amount recommended by the who, the World Health Organization. And they sell these particles are down to less than. Down to about 0.3 microns. And that's important. I'll come back to that in a second. But they saw that all these people had increased risk for strokes, heart disease, kids have more issues with heart issues, inflammatory conditions. There's this thing, this inflammatory, pediatric inflammatory, post infectious inflammatory condition that tends to occur in population centers like New York City. Maybe there's a correlation with those inflammatory conditions and inhaled particles. But it showed air pollution is a major factor in chronic illness. That's the first thing. The second article was actually an air pollution article looking in northern Italy in relation to COVID 19. Okay, sounds interesting. And it actually showed a correlation with air pollution exposure and severity of disease with COVID 19 in Northern Italy. And this was one of those population centers. So interesting. Another and this was actually there's a big organization in the UK that looks at air pollution and chronic disease and they show that some of these cities in Europe it's equivalent to smoking like 150 cigarettes a day. And these are not population centers like Wuhan, but these are like relative centers and just living there it's like smoking 150 cigarettes a day. And they saw a lot of increased issues with illnesses. The air pollution was actually directly associated in China with case fatalities of sars. Let me repeat that once again and I quote. Air pollution has even been associated with case fatality rate of SARS in China. So interesting. So air quality, another one was actually air pollution and this is actually again from the UK showing a direct correlation with air pollution and the risk from dying with SARS and other respiratory tract infections. Now SARS was SARS. COV1 is a predecessor of SARS COV2 which is COVID19. This is going back, this data was from, that was 2002, 2003. So during that time. This also may help us explain why in Spain and certain parts of the UK we're seeing more serious respiratory issues with with this illness. Another article, and this is actually kind of interesting article looking at air pollution as a major risk factor not only for COVID 19 but also for asthma and COPD. Well that's kind of makes sense. The BBC actually put out this interesting article looking at air pollution killing 4.2 million people in the year every in the world every year. So let me say that one more time. Air pollution kills about 4.2 million people worldwide every year. And there's another one with medrx which is the pre publication research that lastup's been pushed around now looking at respiratory air pollution quality as a major risk factor for long term complications of COVID 19. And they actually looked at with this looked at over 3,000 counties in the United States. So this particular study represented over 98% of Americans. So 3,000 counties in the United States and showed even small exposures to air pollution are showing an increased risk for COVID 19 death. Okay, all right, let me repeat that once again. In The United States, 3,000 counties that represent about 95% of the country, air pollution exposure is associated with an increased risk for from COVID 19. So, okay, so, so what? Well, this kind of goes into the whole functional medicine perspective. Your environment plays a role with your health. The food you eat, the water you drink, the air you breathe plays an important role with your health. Now how can you change that now? Well, I did mention the 0.3 micron particles. A standard HEPA filter, not an ultra HEPA filter, but a regular HEPA filter filters down to 0.3 microns. So just going to your local store, Costco carries these and actually reasonably priced, usually about $120, you can remove 99.99% of these particles that you would be breathing otherwise. So simply a HEPA filter in your, in your master bedroom and your main living space is going to move these microparticles that lots of people breathe. I live out in the country, out in Goochland. So outside of central Virginia, outside of the Richmond area in Virginia, so they're out here is relatively clean, lots of allergies, dust, mold, etc. Like that. But in major cities, you know, downtown cities, where you have railroad tracks, where you have intersections of 64, 95 here in Richmond or wherever you live, you're going to have a lot more of these microparticles in the air. And a simple HEPA filter can have significant impact, not only your quality of health, risk for heart disease, strokes, etc, etc, but asthma, COPD, and actually now COVID 19, that's something you can do now that actually can help improve your health. And we actually do talk about this in our survival guide, which is on our website. This was something I put in there back in March. So this is not new information per se, but it's information you can do to take charge of your health now. And in my personal opinion, knowing how building materials work, knowing how insulation works, how air and air trapping works in houses, how the Bernoulli effect works in your house, knowing also well how air stacking works, where air comes in your crawl space and up your house, we probably all need HEPA filters in our bedrooms, in our main living space. So that's something we can all do that's going to actually help improve our health. Hopefully this was useful, these articles, these links, I'm sorry, the links will be, will be posted below in YouTube. It's kind of hard to do this in Facebook and almost impossible on Instagram. We will also be posting these articles and small snippets and social media over the next several weeks just for, just to kind of remind us because I feel like we need to be reminded about the basic things. The basics are still the basics and the main thing still the main thing. And there are some basic things we can do for our health that can have major, major impacts. You're not in this alone. We're in this together. And there are things you can do to stay healthy. So again, hopefully this was helpful. If it was share it with your family and friends like us, follow us. That's also how more people can find this information and stay safe, be well.