121–130 of 204 posts
I can't find the link to the actual study. What I'd like to know is whether there was any research into the actual causal relationships (such as the other study that was linked with pollution particles found in brains), or if it was just statistical correlation between places with high pollution and places with high levels of depression and suicide. If the latter, it could well be a spurious correlation (e.g. polluti…
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP4595
I live in Northern India which has heavy air pollution. I recently bought an air purifier. Just the difference in the quality of sleep is amazing. And it is not a placebo effect. The filters are already visibly grimy. The PM 2.5 consistently now is around mid 20s down from around 180-190. I would recommend it to all in North India who can afford it, esp households with small children.
> And it is not a placebo effect. How do you know?
Then, stop. Observe your lung function and comfort levels throughout the next 3 months.
I am rather certain that you will feel a difference. :)
> The results show strong correlations, but research that would prove a causal link is difficult because ethical experiments cannot deliberately expose people to harm. This is kind of my hobby horse: you don't need to subject people to harm to test causuality. You can do the opposite: Remove harm and see what happens. Maybe give people free HVAC upgrades to filter more particles.
Or, like, reduce air pollution since in addition to this possibility it's already known to cause asthma, lung cancer, and heart disease.
If anything we are not "killing the planet" we are destroying the conditions that allow life to thrive on Earth. I've been following these links since 2013 and more studies are showing this could be a "thing."
"Here we estimate associations between multiple environmental factors (air quality, residential greenness, mean temperature, and temperature variability) and self-assessed mental health scores for over 20,000 Chinese residents. Mental health scores were surveyed in 2010 and 2014, allowing us to link changes in mental health to the changes in environmental variables. Increases in air pollution and temperature variability are associated with higher probabilities of declined mental health. Mental health is statistically unrelated to mean temperature in this study, and the effect of greenness on mental health depends on model settings, suggesting a need for further study. Our findings suggest that the environmental policies to reduce emissions of air pollution or greenhouse gases can improve mental health of the public in China."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10196-y
More importantly:
1. Air Pollution Linked to Mutations https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2002/12/air-pollution-linked...
2. Air pollution causes sperm mutations https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080113/full/news.2008.439.h...
3. January 1994 What Are People Dying of on High Air Pollution Days? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139...
"The air pollution disasters in London in 1952, the Meuse valley in 1930, and in Donoroa, Pennsylvania, in 1948 made it clear that extremely high levels of particulate-based smog could produce large increases in the daily mortality rate."
Edit: A Few more from earlier times:
1996 Feb: Psychiatric aspects of air pollution. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8637739
December 1984: Air pollution and depressive symptomatology: Exploratory analyses of intervening psychosocial factors https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01256411
Nov. 2, 1999 Air Pollution Linked to Increased Heart Rate https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/19991102/air-pollution-linke...
1981 Dec The psychological effects of indoor air pollution. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1805416/
June 1989 Psychological effects of air pollution on healthy residents—A time-series approach https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02724...
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It would definitely be very impractical and expensive to achieve. Also the fact that you add back those particles still feels at least a bit unethical. Definitely not a simple issue. But using a filter that selectively removes just that pollutant and changes nothing[0] else would probably be the cleanest way to do it. [0] another thing that's very hard to achieve.
If the result to the user (getting a machine that leaves them with clean air except 1 type of polutant at exactly the level that polutant would be without the machine), is it really different ethically based on whether the machine leaves that polutant or removes then replaces it? Seems kind of like saying (although this example is certainly less ethical to those of us who oppose murder and death penalties) that there…
I guess it's the difference between a surgeon operating and taking out 90% of a tumor, and a surgeon taking out the whole tumor then putting a bit back in. But again, I am not an ethics expert, this is just me bouncing ideas.
Oh more likely, both of them are correlated with a third variable (i.e. confounding) which is most likely living in a dense city
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Sure, but this is misplaced skepticism. There have been many studies attesting to the harms of PM 2.5 and the benefits of intervention. The onus isn't on a single consumer to set up a double blind, randomized test for himself, the onus is on you to simply google for the many that have been already done. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180822112406.h... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26022815/ htt…
Just because it has an effect on the average person doesn't mean it must have an effect on every person. It can still be a placebo for any one individual, and I don't see the harm of asking how does one double-check if the effect is real or not.
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I agree that depression is a serious and systemic problem, but I don't see why that invalidates medical inquiry into physical causes as well. We can study a problem from multiple angles, because we're merely trying to understand better. Everything you said about depression is bad, and 24/7 smog is also a bad thing which may lead to depression, one does not preclude the other from being factual.
I don't disagree in principle with the idea that the physical aspects of/influences on depression are worth studying. I do, however, think the overall approach we are taking towards depression as a society is fundamentally backwards. We have a massive industry that is focused around producing psychiatric medication so that people can more effectively operate in the society we've structured around them, but we didn't…
> The results show strong correlations, but research that would prove a causal link is difficult because ethical experiments cannot deliberately expose people to harm. This is kind of my hobby horse: you don't need to subject people to harm to test causuality. You can do the opposite: Remove harm and see what happens. Maybe give people free HVAC upgrades to filter more particles.