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The health benefits of better air

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Re: The health benefits of better air

#451

Post by yarcob »

steventharlow wrote: post #281
darkwater wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no way an expert on the matter but by pure logic it's still amazes me how we survived (and evolved!) as a species for thousand of years without almost no shelter from direct sunlight and yet now (too much) sunlight exposure is seen as a cause of death. I know we lost almost all the body hair we used to have but still, we usually wear clothes when under the sun.

Evolution (and survival) only cares about if you survive to reproduce. So human evolution (and survival) matters only until 14-40, and humans aren't dying of skin cancer at exceedingly large numbers at those ages. If we pushed back the reproductive age we'd eventually evolve to live longer (though would have more people dying without reproducing first). This experiment has been successfully shown in fruit flies.

> human evolution (and survival) matters only until 14-40

I just don't think that's true. I think grand parents being around was important for human survival.

If it wasn't, if all that mattered was having the most kids, then why would women go through menopause? Wouldn't it be better if women continued having children until they die?

I think it makes sense that young people have kids (the sooner the better, faster evolution and less chance of DNA degradation)

Then they should live as long as possible to help raise their grandkids to ensure their genes survive.

Re: The health benefits of better air

#452

Post by splithalf »

G3rn0ti wrote: post #448
splithalf wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Air quality is a real threat in many countries but not anymore in the US” Couldn’t be more wrong. As the author casually admits, we know nothing without experiments. End of story. What makes your statement so wrong is that it takes decades for the consequences to show up, if they are measurable at all, in non experimental studies. That is exactly the same reason that cigarettes were considered safe for so long. Heal…

> What makes your statement so wrong is that it takes decades for the consequences to show up, if they are measurable at all, in non experimental studies. So, you're telling me the air quality is getting worse despite this trend not being observed, yet? There is a logical fallacy somewhere. Furthermore, the link between lung cancer and cigarette smoking was well observed already in the 50s but the tobacco industry na…

Define “air quality” as a single metric is crude at best, but arguably dishonest. The nature of pollution and the pollutants themselves have changed have they not?

Edit: To illustrate the point, assume that getting regular physical is more important now than 100 years ago, due to on average more sedentary contemporary lifestyles. Assume heavy air pollution decreases outdoor activity, which seems plausible if not certain. How long would it take for a body of scientific literature to develop to document the problem? Given measurement problems and the difficulty of doing simulation heavy research, we might never be able to prove such a linkage exists, even if it did.

Re: The health benefits of better air

#453

Post by sizzle »

HPsquared wrote: post #276
tda wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a cheap pm10 meter and ran it continuously for a few weeks. Next too cooking meat the other activity that stood out was blowing out the birthday candles. The pm10 rose to 300 and only was backs to healthy levels (below 50) several hours later. I was as surprised as you are. Next time I'll definitely open a window

Not all particles are equally toxic. If I had to guess, the smoke from a recently-extinguished candle is probably condensed wax vapor rather than PAHs and heavy metals.

Condensed wax vapor can’t be good for your lungs when inhaled

Re: The health benefits of better air

#454

Post by sizzle »

Anyone know the particulate exposure levels of being around your car in the garage and starting and stopping the engine multiple times a day (garage door open), how much is this going to effectively reduce your lifespan from being around combustion engines daily.

Re: The health benefits of better air

#455

Post by sizzle »

Also any idea what the VOCs pollution or particulate matter is being released in the air from heated electronics e.g. lcd TV panel getting hit, computer monitors getting hot (WFH running it all day),hot laptops, hot charging bricks for electronics, etc.

I tend to smell the bad chemical smells from these hot electronics in plastic casing, what about furniture and other stuff indoors imparting VOCs e.g. formaldehyde? Surely these things are additive to the things mentioned in the article and bad for our health?

Re: The health benefits of better air

#457

Post by clairity »

colechristensen wrote: post #188
clairity wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

note that the effects of periodically higher co2 concentrations on overall health is inconclusive at best (life evolved with significant co2 around). particulate matter and atmospheric pollutants (like voc’s), however, are most assuredly detrimental to our health, so it makes sense to act mainly on the latter (with air filters/purifiers) over the former.

I've worked in offices where the CO2 levels regularly spiked to levels not seen since... pants first started colonizing the land. It's been, what, 30? 50? million years since atmospheric CO2 levels matched current outdoor levels, much less what happens inside.

the point is that humans (and life in general) have entirely evolved with varying levels of co2, so the excess levels found in a fairly closed room is unlikely to be a really serious risk (vs. a sealed room with much higher concentrations, where it's obviously a serious asphyxiation risk). this risk, according to research, is currently inconclusive at best.

the concentrations and types of particulate matter, however, is unprecedented, and as such, presents a higher inate risk, something that scientific research is really only starting to grapple with but so far is showing to be likely a serious risk to many (most?) species on earth.

with that said, i'm not trying to discourage your project in any way, just saying that for most people, addressing particulate (plus voc) risk is likely going to be the overwhelming majority of the benefits to be found in relation to indoor air quality. reducing co2 could be worthwhile if you have an especially airtight room/house, but nearly no houses are that airtight (passiv houses are meant to be so, however).

Re: The health benefits of better air

#458

Post by energ8 »

colechristensen wrote: post #108
ahaucnx wrote: post #9

Thank you for this extensive resource on air quality. Yes, it needs to get more attention as it is one of the main drivers of mortality of environmental risks. One thing one has to bear in mind is that often when you optmize your home for low PM (e.g. with air purifiers and fixing of air leackage) your CO2 will get very high causing headaches and reduce cognitive performance. So it always makes sense for indoor air q…

I have an AirVisual Pro, which is quite expensive, but my half finished air quality monitor project had been on the bench for much too long. I have windows open all the time, air conditioning on too often, and dehumidifiers and HEPA filters as well. It is not efficient or particularly environmentally friendly... but I want a CO2 level My next half baked idea is figuring out a way to have a sealed home and an applianc…

You might be interested in this paywalled paper (or similar ones): https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.iecr.0c02255

Re: The health benefits of better air

#459

Post by twiddling »

tda wrote: post #187
WillPostForFood wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extinguish candles with a lid. If you are worrying about the method by which you extinguish a candle, worrying is what's going to shorten your life, not the candle.

I have a cheap pm10 meter and ran it continuously for a few weeks. Next too cooking meat the other activity that stood out was blowing out the birthday candles. The pm10 rose to 300 and only was backs to healthy levels (below 50) several hours later. I was as surprised as you are. Next time I'll definitely open a window

check out fireworks for the Fourth: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-big-fireworks-pollu...

Re: The health benefits of better air

#460

Post by garfieldnate »

stared wrote: post #288
crazygringo wrote: post #130

This article seems to make fantastic jumps from the believable -- mortality from overall air pollution (e.g. in Delhi) to the frankly unbelievable -- your ultrasonic humidifier supposedly reducing your life by nearly an hour each night, or that a daily commute between Newark and NYC takes half a year off your life. According to this logic, anyone who works in the subway should be dying, what, 10 years earlier? Which…

When it comes to ultrasonic humidifiers, they do generate a lot of PM 2.5, see: https://blog.getawair.com/awair-investigates-how-your-humidi... It is NOT certain that these particles are as bad as ones from dust or combustion. All in all, when small droplets evaporate, what remains is water-soluble salts, rather than anything more reactive or harder to remove, see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922954/…

Technology Connections did a video on humidifiers, and if I remember correctly the evaporative ones weren't actually slower than the ultrasonic ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28&ab_channel=Techn...
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