53% Of Kids In Polluted Cities Have Bad Lungs: Study | Kolkata News – Times of India

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KOLKATA: More than half of children — 52.8%, to be precise — living in polluted cities like Kolkata and Delhi suffer from impaired lung function, according to a study by Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI) that also reveals that youngsters in polluted cities were more prone to liver and brain ailments because of frequent infiltration of tiny particulate matter that they inhale.
The study was conducted on 50,000 school students of Kolkata, Delhi and Kinnaur of Himachal Pradesh.
The health impact of air pollution on children living in polluted cities was found to be significantly higher than on those living in clean ambient air.

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Apart from lung impairment and a series of ailments, including liver and windpipe cancer, tiny pollutants (PM2.5 and PM1) were invading the brain, causing either autism or serious “attention deficit hyperactivity disease (ADHD)” among children living in polluted cities like Kolkata and Delhi, the study claims.
“Since the brain consumes 50% of the oxygen we inhale, the pollutants are travelling faster to the brain to cause disorders,” said Manas Ranjan Ray, former head of experimental haematology of CNCI, at a symposium on children’s rights to clean air.
The study also revealed that boys were five times more prone to these diseases than girls. In the case of adults, the invasion of pollutants causes Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The chance of occurrence of such diseases was found to be 6.7% for children in cities like Kolkata, compared with 2.7% for those in pollution-free areas like Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh.
The report, which was submitted to the central government, revealed the prevalence of high blood pressure in children living in polluted cities like Kolkata and Delhi. Among children, girls were found to be more prone to hypertension than boys.
‘Kids worst sufferers due to higher breathing rate’
Children were the worst sufferers of air pollution because of their higher breathing rate, narrower windpipe, still-developing lungs and immune system, said Ray at a recent symposium by the SwitchON Foundation, a Kolkata-based climate advocacy group. “Air pollution triggers asthma exacerbation in children,” said Arup Haldar, a senior pulmonologist, adding,
“As India has the most polluted megacities in the world, we also have the highest number of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and second-highest number of asthma deaths.” Every one in 4 OPD patients across hospitals have respiratory distress and one in every three deaths is due to respiratory diseases, the study claims. “The fine and ultra-fine particulate matter may directly traverse blood vessels and affect the heart and become a systemic inflammation,” Ray added. “It can cause diabetes and dementia and even hamper neurological development in children.
The recent State of Global Air (SOGA) report linked air pollution to even as a cause of neonatal mortality (in terms of causing preterm births and low birth-weight babies).” Rajiv Khurana, joining the event from The Lung Care Foundation, said: “Before we ask children of today about what their future plans would be, it is our primary responsibility to secure their future by providing them clean air and a healthy environment…. It is time to fight for them and also fight along with them to secure their right to healthy clean air. Every micro action can collectively create a macro impact.”

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