Lung Cancer and Air Pollution

During past few years passive smoking and air pollution in metro cities is becoming the major cause of lung diseases. Lung cancer is the worst form such diseases which can take a person to verge of death if not diagnosed at right time.

In a report in 1981, out of all cancer deaths

• 2% are caused due to pollution
• 4% are result of occupational exposure
• 30% are due to smoking
• 35% due to incorrect diet

Either the environment of that time was much safer or there were some mistakes in that report.

2010 report by the US President's Cancer Panel claims

• 19% of all cancer deaths worldwide are due to environmental pollution and occupational exposure.

In year 2010 more than 220,000 lung cancer deaths were caused due to air pollution. Majority of these deaths were in China and East Asian Countries due to particulate matter in environment.

In year 2010 around 157,300 deaths in US were caused due to lung cancer. More than 17000 of them were non smokers. Researches contribute exposure to asbestos, passive smoking and air pollution is main reason for these 17000 lung cancer deaths.

According to a data from the Global Burden of Disease Project there were 3.2 million deaths around the world resulted from air pollution in year 2010, including 223,000 from lung cancer.

Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo monitored the health of more than 16000 men in the age group of 40 to 49 years between 1971 to 1998. During the study 418 men got lung cancer. Researchers lead to the following conclusion from that study.

• Nitrogen oxide, mainly produced by traffic and Sulphur Dioxide increased the risk of Cancer.
• Urban Air Pollution increases the risk of cancer in men.

Recently a six year old Chinese girl is diagnosed with lung cancer. She is the the youngest patient of lung cancer ever. The main reason for her condition is found to be air pollutants in her locality.

Air pollution exposes majority of population to risk of lung cancer. No matter how rich you are, you are similarly exposed to this threat same as a lower class person. Pollution due to industries and vehicles can't be stopped in a single day. So even if some regulations were imposed, still it will take years for the condition to be better.

No only the air outside your home is polluted, some carcinogens inside our house also pollute the air inside our house. Most of us don't even know the several carcinogen are present in the building material used to construct our house. Know more about Carcinogens.