Air pollution is causing people in the UK to get chronic illnesses like dementia and Parkinson’s earlier, a new study has found.
Researchers from across China’s Sun Yat-Sen University, Saint Louis University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong analysed data from the UK Biobank, examining more than 900,000 hospitalisation records from 396,000 Britons aged 39 to 70 who volunteered to join the study between 2006 and 2010.
The study tracked the first occurrence of 78 chronic illnesses, like hypertension, stroke, COPD, diabetes, and dementia. Researchers found that exposure to high levels of air pollution was associated with an earlier onset of 48 out of 78 long-term conditions, more than 61 per cent.
High air pollution exposure significantly accelerated the onset of neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as dystonia and myasthenia gravis, by approximately two to five years, the study found. Schizophrenia was similarly impacted, with the age of onset reduced by approximately 2.4 to 3.8 per cent.
Air pollution overexposure helped accelerate the average age onset for a substantial number of the 78 chronic conditions, with hypertension, diabetes, and asthma emerging as the top three contributors.
While this isn’t the first study to look at how air pollution is linked to the risk of chronic illness, few papers have explored how it can make people develop these conditions at a younger age.
One author told The Guardian: “Our study demonstrates that air pollution is not just a risk factor for falling ill; it acts as a silent accelerator that robs individuals of their healthiest years.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) called on countries around the world to improve their air quality in order to cut the “enormous health burden resulting from exposure to air pollution worldwide” in 2021.
While air pollution across Europe continues to decline, the European Energy Agency estimates that 94 per cent of the urban population remains exposed to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) – the pollutant most harmful to human health – above WHO guideline levels.
The Royal College of Physicians issued a warning last year that air pollution is estimated to contribute to the equivalent of 30,000 deaths in the UK in 2025 and cost more than £27 billion annually.
The college compared the state of air pollution last year to 2019, where costs for healthcare, productivity losses and reduced quality of life cost the UK upwards of £27 billion. The government estimated that the equivalent of 29,000 to 43,000 deaths in the UK in 2019 were linked to air pollution.
Annual costs could still be up to £30 billion per year in 2040, they warned, despite pollutant exposures being projected to fall in coming years under current government policies including Net Zero.
