Pollution Increases Chance of Lung Cancer and Heart Disease

Low level exposure to traffic fumes is enough to raise the risk of lung cancer was reported in  the journal The Lancet Oncology. Lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer in the UK., It claiming almost 35,000 lives in 2010. In the same year, 42,000 Britons were diagnosed with lung cancer.

About 86% of lung cancer.cases are believed to be a direct result of smoking. Other potential triggers include exposure to natural radon from the ground and toxic substances in the workplace, such as asbestos.

The new research, reported in the journal The Lancet Oncology, analysed pooled information from 17 studies in nine European countries. In total, the data covered almost 313,000 individuals.

Over an average 13 year follow-up period, 2,095 study participants developed lung cancer.

People’s chances of having the disease rose with greater exposure to small sooty  particles from diesel exhausts which can lodge in the lungs.

The trend was seen  air better than the quality limits set by the European Union. Lead scientists Dr Ole Raaschou-Nielsen, from the Danish Cancer Society Research Centre, said: 'We found no threshold below which there was no risk. The results showed a picture that ‘the more the worse, the less the better’.'

Traffic pollution was mostly linked to adenocarcinoma lung cancer, the only form of the disease to affect significant numbers of non-smokers.

Japanese expert Dr Takashi Yorifuji from Okayama University wrote: 'At this stage, we might have to add air pollution, even at current concentrations, to the list of causes of lung cancer and recognise that air pollution has large effects on public health.'

In a second study published in a sister journal, The Lancet, air pollution was linked with a higher chance of heart failure patients being hospitalised. Researchers combined data from 35 studies and estimated that a modest reduction in fine particulate pollution levels could prevent 8,000 heart failure hospitalisations each year in the US.

Dr Anoop Shah, from the University of Edinburgh, who co-led the British Heart Foundation-funded study said: 'We already know that air pollution is associated with an increased risk of having a heart attack. Our study suggests that air pollution also affects patients with heart failure.' Heart failure occurs when the heart is too weak to pump blood efficiently. It affects more than 750,000 people in the UK..