Chapter 37
Lifestyle+ — 28
Figure 3.11. The multisystem toxicity of air pollution. Adapted from Sanjay Rajagopalan et al., “Air pollution exposure and cardiometabolic risk,” Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology 12, no. 3 (March 2024): 196–208, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(23)00361-3.
It’s not just air pollution in our environment that poses significant risks. Secondhand smoke has been linked to ischemic heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, asthma, and breast cancer. Moderate levels of the indoor odorless gas radon are associated with increased risk of nonsmoking lung cancer and risk of stroke, but 75 percent of American homes have not been tested for radon. About one-third of the population is currently exposed above a significant threshold level, which is fourfold higher than previous estimates.
Pesticides have been associated with a risk of multiple cancers, type 2 diabetes, cognitive impairment, Parkinson’s disease, autoimmune diseases, thyroid disease, infertility, and loss of smell. A systematic review of the published studies found supportive but not definitive evidence for some of these risks, owing to rigorous, prospective assessment. Consumer Reports published practical recommendations for how pesticide exposure can be reduced from our foods based on several years of data from the Department of Agriculture. The pesticide health risks could be reduced by banning the implicated organophosphates and carbamates, but no action has been taken.
Besides gases, there are the health risks of noise pollution well beyond damage to our ears. About one hundred million Americans experience a continuous daily exposure of greater than seventy decibels, the equivalent of standing next to a washing machine all day. Chronic noise pollution, especially at nighttime, is associated with increased stress hormones, body-wide inflammation, high blood pressure, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.
Microplastic (1 μm to 5 mm) and nanoplastics (less than 1 μm, smaller than a speck of dust) carry over ten thousand chemicals such as bisphenols and phthalates; have become ubiquitous in our environment, food, ambient air, the oceans, and drinking bottled water; and are linked with serious health hazards. The increasing plastic production each year, from less than two million tons in 1950 to more than four hundred million tons today, has led cumulatively to over six hundred billion tons, which will never go away. There are over 240,000 particles in an average liter of bottled water; 90 percent are nanoplastics. It was one thing to document the pervasive presence of microplastics in our air and water, but another to find it in our arteries, brains, blood clots, liver, gut, lung, placentas, testicles, and other tissues.