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Orthopedic Hospital offers TV during surgery

Orthopaedic patient Paul Eaton is one of an increasing number choosing to watch TV during surgery

An increasing number of NHS hospitals around the UK are offering patients an opportunity to watch TV programs or films while undergoing operations.

Hospitals in Glasgow and Peterborough were among the pioneers and the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopedic Hospital near Oswestry is also adopting a similar approach.

“I feel fine, I can’t feel a thing and I’m watching Match of The Day.”

That was the perspective of 57-year-old patient Paul Eaton during his hip replacement operation at the orthopedic hospital, one of the UK’s leading centers of excellence in its field.

Mr Eaton is one of an increasing number of orthopedic patients at the hospital receiving a spinal, rather than general, anesthetic and remaining conscious throughout surgery.

While consultant surgeon Richard Spencer Jones cut, sawed and hammered during the hour-long hip replacement, Mr Eaton watched football highlights on iPlayer, via the hospital’s wi-fi network.

Recovery time

Listening to music or watching TV also helps patients relax during what is a naturally daunting time. It has been made possible thanks to advances in anesthesia.

“From my point of view, it doesn’t affect me one little bit during the procedure. I can get on and do my job without worrying,” consultant anesthetist Elis Hughes said.

“But from the patient’s point of view, afterwards, it just means they get going a lot quicker.”

Mr Eaton expects to be home in a couple of days.

“It was very straightforward. I can’t believe how simple it was,” he said.

The hospital’s move away from general anesthetic, where possible, not only tends to speed up initial recovery time, but also cuts instances of post-operative sickness, the hospital said.

Crucially, it also cuts the amount of time patients have to stay in hospital and frees up much-needed beds.

 

Unlocking the secrets of the Elephant Man

Photo of Joseph Merrick and his skullThe Elephant Man, Joseph Merrick, was an object of curiosity and ridicule throughout his life – studied, prodded and examined by the Victorian medical establishment. Now, 123 years after his death, scientists believe his bones contain secrets about his condition which could benefit medical science today.

Joseph Merrick began to develop abnormally from an early age, eventually being gawped at by Victorian circusgoers and examined by inquisitive doctors. The cause of his malformed head, curved spine, “lumpy” skin and overgrown right arm and hand has never been definitively explained.

Ironically, it is the medical preservation of Merrick’s skeleton that is now causing the greatest problems in unlocking his body’s secrets.

“The skeleton, which is well over a hundred years old now, is actually very clean,” says Prof Richard Trembath, vice-principal for health at Queen Mary University of London, and the custodian of Merrick’s body.

This represents a significant problem. On a number of occasions over the years the skeleton has been bleached during the preservation process. Bleach is not a good chemical to expose DNA to. It gives us an added problem in trying to extract sufficient quantities of DNA in order to undertake sequencing.”

The hope is, though, that DNA can be extracted which will determine once and for all exactly what genetic condition he suffered from.

There have been several theories. For many years it was thought he had neurofibromatosis type 1, but in more recent years doctors have come to believe he had a condition known as Proteus Syndrome, or possibly a combination of both.

A team of geneticists from Queen Mary University of London, King’s College London, and the Natural History Museum are currently working on techniques to extract DNA from similar age bones which have also been bleached before beginning work on Merrick’s skeleton. They are anxious to keep any further damage to the bones to a minimum.

Bleach is sometimes used in labs to remove traces of DNA, so in many ways it is the worst possible thing to do to bones if the hope is to extract genetic information.

The genetic condition of Richard III’s remains – buried for hundreds of years below a car park in Leicester – is actually better than those of Merrick.

His extreme deformity is obvious from his skeleton, but confined to parts of his body. His skull has large growths of bone at the front of his temple and on the right side.

His right arm and hand is far bigger than his left, which appears normal, and his right femur (upper leg bone) is much bigger and thicker than the left. His spine is also badly curved, causing the whole body to be hunched.

“When Merrick was being formed in his mother’s womb it is highly likely that a genetic alteration occurred, but not until after the sperm and the egg had come together – probably at a stage when there were a number of cells, only some of which have gone on to contribute to his problems,” says Trembath.

The skeleton is kept under lock and key in a small museum in the medical school at the Royal London Hospital, and is not normally on public display. It is the same hospital where Merrick spent his later years as a friend and patient of the prominent Victorian surgeon Frederick Treves, and the place where he died at the age of 27 in April 1890.

According to Treves, Merrick died from a dislocated neck when he lay down to sleep, due to the huge weight of his head.

The team of geneticists extracting the DNA is being led by Dr Michael Simpson from King’s College London. In his lab he has been working on segments of bone to develop new techniques for obtaining genetic information from badly bleached fragments.

The team has been successful in obtaining DNA, but is still working on methods of “cleaning” the badly damaged DNA sufficiently to obtain a complete genetic sequence.

Apart from scientific curiosity in his medical condition, Trembath believes the results could help modern medical science and its knowledge of cell division.

“This is very significant overgrowth of tissue,” he says while examining the growths on the skull. “The understanding of the regulation of cell growth is one of the most fundamental things that we need to understand. It sits behind the development of tumours and we need to understand more about how tumours develop.”

He points out that Merrick himself was keen to help the Victorian doctors with their scientific investigation. More than a century on, the work continues.

“I have a sense that he is an ever willing partner in trying to help us get there. This is one of the most extreme forms of overgrowth that has ever been seen, and so there is a unique opportunity to gain some fundamental insights into human biology, and Merrick knew he was sitting on that kind of information.”

 For more http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23863974

How to spot vision problems in children

kid_glasses.jpgThere are many conditions that, although extremely rare, can cause blindness in a child if not caught on time. One such condition is pediatric glaucoma, which occurs when the pressure in the eye is elevated, causing damage to the optic nerve.

Other more common conditions that can affect a child’s vision include strabismus, a crossing of the eyes, or amblyopia, poor vision in one or both of the eyes. If untreated, pediatric eye conditions like these can lead to long term problems with vision, hinder the development of the eye and cause problems with socialization and learning.

I spoke to Dr. Shreya Prabhu, an assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at Mt. Sinai Medical School in New York, to find out what parents need to know:

What signs and symptoms should parents be aware of?
There are two types of pediatric glaucoma – infantile and juvenile.

Infantile glaucoma, which becomes evident within months of birth, is associated with several visible symptoms that parents may be able to spot, according to Prabhu.

“(Children) don’t seem to want to open their eyes in the light, the surface of the eye looks cloudy, their eye looks teary,” Prabhu told FoxNews.com. “(These are) all things parents can look out for.”

Some infants with glaucoma will also have enlarged corneas – or unusually large eyes – a trait that can be difficult for parents to spot, but can sometimes be recognized by a pediatrician.

However, juvenile glaucoma, which develops during adolescence, is often asymptomatic.

“It’s only picked up if child goes for a vision exam and something is detected like poor vision or they go for a routine evaluation and someone looks inside their eyes,” Prabhu said.

If adolescents begin to experience problems with peripheral vision, or complain of ‘tunnel vision,’ parents should take them to a doctor immediately, as these are signs that the disease has become more advanced.

Conditions like strabismus are much more easy to spot because they cause a visible crossing or wandering of the eye. However, poor vision can be more difficult for parents to notice without the help of an eye exam.

How early should a child get an eye examination? What should that exam cover?
Doctors will typically perform simple vision tests from birth to rule out major problems in infants, according to Prabhu. Then, as children get older, many will receive vision tests at school, in addition to regular eye evaluations during their yearly visit to their pediatrician.

“They’ll do things like check pupils, how well they seem to see with each eye, do an external exam and look for a red reflux in the retina… that (red eye) when people take pictures,” Prabhu said. “If you don’t see that red spot in the center of the eye, there could be something in the eye like a cataract or other things obscuring that.”

Doctors should also ask parents about any family history of eye conditions. If the pediatrician spots a problem, they will typically refer the child to an ophthalmologist for further treatment.

“Generally, the screening guidelines say (children) don’t need an ophthalmologist unless something is going on – they’re showing signs or failing vision tests at pediatrician or school,” Prabhu said.

What kinds of early interventions can make a difference?
Spotting vision problems early in a child’s life can play a crucial role in preserving a child’s eyesight.

“The benefit is, in congenital glaucoma, they can have severe vision loss if it is not treated early,” Prabhu said. “The later it’s diagnosed, the more ground you’ve lost.”

Juvenile glaucoma can typically be treated with eye drops, pills or surgery, while for infants, the best treatment option is usually surgical.

Additionally, being vigilant about a child’s eye health can completely resolve some cases of crossed eyes or poor vision.

Crossed eyes can be treated with a combination of glasses or surgical interventions, depending on the origin of the problem. Furthermore, poor vision can also be treated with glasses, or occasionally with eye patches to strengthen the weaker eye.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/09/05/how-to-spot-vision-problems-in-children/#ixzz2e5vKPuMt

 

Skipping meds linked to more hospital visits for kids

http://media2.onsugar.com/files/2013/02/06/1/192/1922398/netimg4uy3bC.xxxlarge/i/How-Make-Your-Childs-Doctor-Hospital-Visits-Easier.jpg

Skipping meds linked to more hospital visits for kids

Kids and teens with asthma and type 1 diabetes often don`t take their medication as prescribed, and those that skip doses are more likely to end up in the emergency room, according to a new review.

More than half of children with a chronic illness are put on medication, but past studies have found anywhere from 50 percent to 88 percent don`t take their drugs as prescribed.

“In our experience, most patients and families are surprised to learn how prevalent this problem is, and many clinicians are as well,” lead author Meghan McGrady of the Division of Behavioral Medicine and Clinical Psychology at Cincinnati Children`s Hospital Medical Center, said.

She and co-author Kevin Hommel set out to gauge the long-term healthcare utilization consequences of children with chronic illnesses not taking their medicine.

Their review included 10 past studies, nine of which found a link between skipping medication and more hospital visits.

Nine of the studies included children with asthma and the tenth focused on those with type 1 diabetes. Most studies looked at kids between two and 18 years old; one included young adults up to age 29.

Studies tracked children`s medication use through pharmacy refill records, family questionnaires and electronic monitors.

On average, kids with asthma whose families did not fill any of their prescriptions were more likely to go to the ER than children with at least one filled prescription. Likewise, those who rarely refilled their drugs had more ER trips than children who got at least half of their prescribed refills.

For example, one 2007 study of close to 1,500 children found those with no filled prescriptions for an inhaled corticosteroid, compared to one or two, were over 10 times more likely to have an ER visit for asthma.

But the opposite seemed to be true for outpatient and primary care visits. Two studies included outpatient visits and found that the fewer prescriptions a child with asthma had filled, the less likely it was that the child would have an asthma-related primary care visit.

Taking medication as prescribed and regularly scheduling checkups are both part of proper management of chronic conditions, so a child who lags in one category might logically lag in the other, the authors write in the journal Pediatrics.

“It could be that these findings capture the profile of families who have difficulties not only taking their medications, but also attending regularly scheduled follow-up clinic visits,” McGrady told Reuters Health.

According to the American Lung Association, about 7.1 million U.S. children and teens have asthma, and in 2009, there were approximately 774,000 asthma-related ER visits for kids under 15.

Children and teens who don`t take their prescribed medications regularly are at an increased risk of health complications, and also cost the healthcare system more money in the long run, researchers said.

It`s hard to say for sure how much money kids skipping their medication costs the U.S., but estimates suggest non-adherence in general accounts for $100 to $300 billion in healthcare costs each year, Kimberly Driscoll, a pediatric psychologist who studies type 1 diabetes treatment adherence at Florida State University College of Medicine in Tallahassee, said.

“More emergency department visits means more school absences, more hospitalizations and more unnecessary medical expenses,” said Michael Rapoff, who studies pediatric adherence to medication at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City.

For conditions such as asthma, long-acting medications reduce inflammation but don`t appear to have an immediate effect on symptoms, so some kids are more likely to skip them, Rapoff, who wasn`t involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.

The review did not differentiate between necessary and unnecessary ER visits, but there are acute incidents when kids with asthma or diabetes really do need to go to the hospital, whether they take their medicine properly or not, he said.

“The results of this study have implications for children, their parents and their health care providers,” McGrady said. “In all, multi-disciplinary approaches to adherence promotion are an important part of providing optimal medical care.”

Source: Zee News

Mammals may host 320,000 undiscovered viruses

flyingfoxbat.jpgMammals may harbor more than 320,000 undiscovered viruses, all with the potential to affect humans, BBC News reported.

In a study published in the journal mBio, researchers analyzed 1,897 samples collected from flying fox bats. Already known to be carriers of the deadly Nipah virus, 60 additional viruses were discovered within the bats, many of which had never been seen before in humans.

After extrapolating this figure, researchers estimated that at least 320,000 undiscovered viruses likely exist in other mammals, according to BBC News.

Researchers suggest that identifying these viruses, especially those with the potential to spread easily to humans, could help prevent future pandemics. It’s estimated that nearly 70 percent of viruses that infect humans originate in animals – including HIV, Ebola and the deadly new MERS virus.

“What we’re really talking about is defining the full range of diversity of viruses within mammals, and our intent is that as we get more information, we will be able to understand the principles that underlie determinants of risks,” professor Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the University of Columbia, told BBC News.

Though identifying these diseases in mammals would be costly and time-consuming, researchers say it could help them develop a better understanding of which illnesses may pose a threat to human health.

“Despite what looks like an extraordinary expense to pursue this kind of work, it really pales in comparison with what one might learn that could lead to very rapid recognition and intervention that could come to the fore with a pandemic risk,” Lipkin said. “The idea is to develop an early warning system.”

Source: Fox news

 

Odisha confirms 93 new dengue cases

At least 93 new dengue cases were reported Tuesday in Odisha, taking the total number of affected people to 2,593 since June, an official said.

The menace shows no signs of abetting with government hospitals in many parts of the state receiving scores of patients every day, a state health control room official told IANS.

Of the new cases, maximum 27 tested positive for the virus in Khordha district, followed by 20 from adjoining Cuttack, he said.

As many as 156 and 28 patients are undergoing treatment at Cuttack`s Sriram Chandra Bhanja Medical College and Hospital, 26 km from here, and Bhubaneswar`s Capital Hospital, respectively. Of them, 51 were hospitalized Tuesday, he said.

The mosquito-borne disease has spread to 26 of the state`s 30 districts.

 

Even short time of ‘brisk’ activity can help cut the fat

that taking the stairs, parking at the far end of the lot, and walking to the store or between errands are choices that can add up and can make a positive health difference

A new research has revealed that for preventing weight gain, the intensity of the activity matters more than duration.

University of Utah researchers found that even brief episodes of physical activity that exceed a certain level of intensity can have as positive an effect on weight as does the current recommendation of 10 or more minutes at a time.

It was suggested that taking the stairs, parking at the far end of the lot, and walking to the store or between errands are choices that can add up and can make a positive health difference.

Subjects for the study were drawn from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, NHANES, and participants from 18 to 64 years of age were drawn from the database.

Researchers compared measurements of physical activity based on length of time and intensity. Four categories were created: higher-intensity bouts (greater than 10 minutes exertion at greater than 2,020 counts per minutes, or CPM), higher-intensity short bouts (less than 10 minutes at greater than 2,020 CPM), lower-intensity long bouts (greater than 10 minutes and less than 2,019 CPM), and lower-intensity short bouts (less than 10 minutes and less than 2,019 CPM).

The study used body mass index, BMI, to measure weight status.

Results showed that when women each 5-feet-5-inches tall were compared, the woman who regularly adds a minute of brisk activity to her day will weigh nearly a half-pound less. Results were similar for men.

Importantly for both, each daily minute of higher-intensity activity lowered the odds of obesity – 5 percent for women, and 2 percent for men.

In a new study was published in the American Journal of Health Promotion

 

The low cost technology saves premature babies

GE Healthcare created the Lullaby baby-warmer, to help to save lives in a country

Premature babies have very little body fat and are unable to regulate body temperature. Every year more than 20 million babies are born prematurely or with low birth weight – and an estimated 450 of them die each hour.

Yet most of these deaths could be avoided by simply keeping them warm.

“A new-born baby wailing can generally be heard outside the room – even across the hallway. But not my baby Mine can only whimper,” says Jayalakshmi Devi.

She’s standing outside the neo-natal intensive care unit (ICU) staring at the glass box where her baby son is kept.

Born too soon, her baby boy weighs less than 1.2 pounds (0.54kgs). Doctors have given him around a 40% chance of survival.

Having lost two babies already, Jayalakshmi didn’t want to take a chance this time. After delivering her child in a rural healthcare centre three hours outside Bangalore, she brought the baby to the state run hospital in the city.

At Vanivilas hospital, the neo-natal ICU sees scores of premature babies. Most are born at home, in far off rural areas and are brought here in critical condition.

Row after row, the transparent boxes creates warmth to hold the tiny, bare-bodied babies with only an oversized diaper around them. Some of the babies are small enough to fit into your palm.

Life-saving warmth

A baby’s body temperature drops as soon as it is outside the controlled environment of the mother’s womb. So just after labor, it’s important to regulate the temperature.

The babies need incubators to help keep them alive – equipment which state-run hospitals like this one often cannot afford.

So, GE Healthcare created the Lullaby baby-warmer, to help to save lives in a country that has the highest rate of pre-term baby deaths in the world.

Low-cost innovation

It was developed in Bangalore and launched in 2009. The baby warmer costs $3,000 (£1,900) in India, 70% cheaper than traditional models.

The design includes pictorial warnings and color coding, so that even illiterate rural healthcare workers can operate the machine.

The Lullaby warmer also consumes less power than most incubators, which means cost savings for the healthcare centre.

“Where better to make a baby warmer than here – India produces a baby nearly every second,” says GE Healthcare’s Ravi Kaushik.

He believes India is an ideal innovation centre when it comes to products like this, because 70% of the population is rural and 30% is urban, and within this you all different stratas of society.

“So you can have very great world class hospitals that want and require world class medical equipment that America or Europe would require. But at the same time there is a population in rural space that would require same kind of medical attention,” says Mr Kaushik.

Where better to make a baby warmer than here -India produces a baby nearly every second”

Ravi Kaushik GE Healthcare

“So when you design a product, you have to cater to the entire plethora of needs. That allows you to almost hit the entire world because India is a small representation of that.”

Engineers at GE’s technology centre are stripping down lifesaving, high tech medical devices of all their frills to understand how to create products that are affordable.

This project is now widely quoted as an example of “reverse innovation”.

This is where large global companies design products in developing markets like India and then take the successful creation back to international markets to sell.

After success in the domestic market, GE now sells the warmer in more than 80 countries.

Bundled up

While this works for healthcare centers on a budget, it still needs continuous electricity to run.

But go further down the population pyramid, and the problems get more complex.

Women in villages give birth at home and have little access to basic healthcare or electricity.

For them, keeping babies warm means wrapping them in layers of fabric and hot water bottles, or putting them under bare light bulbs.

Many of them don’t survive.

But now a low cost baby bag is saving thousands of young lives. Called the Embrace, it emerged out of a class assignment at Stanford’s Institute of Design in 2007.

Four graduate students – Jane Chen, Linus Liang, Naganand Murty, and Rahul Panicker – were challenged to come up with a low-cost incubator design that could help save premature babies born into poverty.

The team created a sleeping bag with a removable heating element.

Using high school physics, they used phase-change material (PCM), a waxy substance that, as it cools from melted liquid to solid, maintains the desired temperature of 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 F) for up to six hours.

The end product looks like a quilted sleeping bag that is durable and portable. It requires only 30 minutes of electricity to warm up using a portable heater that comes with the product.

More importantly for mothers, it allows for increased contact with their child, unlike traditional incubators.

So it also encourages Kangaroo care, a technique practiced on newborn, especially pre-term infants, which promotes skin-to-skin contact to keep the baby warm and facilitate breastfeeding and bonding.

The infant warmer costs about $200 to make, is inexpensive to distribute, and is reusable.

Embrace is a non-profit venture. The product is not sold, but is donated to impoverished communities in need.

The invention is thought to have helped save the lives of more than 22,000 low birth-weight and premature infants.

Taking the program forward, the organization has developed a new version designed for at-home use by mothers. The model has been successfully prototyped and is currently undergoing clinical testing in India.

The organization has also set up educational program to address the root causes of hypothermia.

“We provide intensive, side-by-side training to mothers, caretakers, and healthcare workers,” says Alejandra Villalobos, director of development at Embrace.

“We develop long-term partnerships with local governments and non-profits in every community where we work.

“We believe that increased access to both technology and education is necessary to achieve our ultimate vision: that every woman and child has an equal chance for a healthy life.”

 

Big belly raises death risk in heart attack survivors

http://topnews.in/files/big-belly101.jpgHigh waist circumference, severe obesity has been linked with the greatest risk of death in heart attack survivors, according to a research.

Professor Tabassome Simon said that the impact of obesity on long term mortality and cardiovascular complications in the general population has been the object of recent debate and much emphasis has also been given to the deleterious role of abdominal obesity.

Simon said that at the time of a heart attack, early mortality tends to be lower in obese patients, a phenomenon well known in critical care situations and described as the `obesity paradox`.

At 5 years, absolute mortality was highest in the leanest patients (BMI less than 22 kg /m2) and lowest in patients with BMI between 25 and 35 kg /m2 (i.e. overweight and mild obesity). Patients with severe obesity (BMI = 35 kg/m2) had a markedly increased mortality after 3 years. Severe abdominal obesity (waist circumference more than 100 cm in women and more than 115 cm in men) was also associated with increased long-term mortality.

Simon said that as waist circumference is strongly linked to BMI, the researchers determined the upper quartile of waist circumference within each BMI category and used both variables together to determine their respective role in association with long-term mortality.

She added that they found that both lean patients (BMI less than 22 kg/m2) and very obese patients (BMI =35 kg/m2) had an increased risk of death at 5 years: + 41 percent and + 65 percent, respectively. Being in the upper quartile of waist circumference was also an indicator of increased mortality at 5 years (+ 44 percent).

 

Early deaths from pollution in the US total 200,000 annually

Those who live in a particularly smoggy city in the US are able to see the pollution that surrounds them on a daily basis. But a recent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reveals that people who live in all types of environments are at risk of pollution-related death.

The study, published in the journal Atmospheric Environment, saw a team from MIT’s Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment track emissions from sources including industrial smokestacks, automobile tailpipes, marine and rail activities, and heating systems around the US.

In order to ascertain how many early deaths are a result of air pollution, the researchers used emissions data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Emissions Inventory, which is a catalog of emissions sources.

They used data from 2005, which was the most recent information available at the start of the study, and then divided it into six emissions sectors:

  • Electric power generation
  • Industry
  • Commercial and residential sources
  • Road transportation
  • Marine transportation
  • Rail transportation.

Results show that in total, air pollution causes about 200,000 early deaths each year, with the greatest number coming from the roads – exhaust from automobile tailpipes was linked to 53,000 deaths per year.

Steven Barrett, assistant professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, says:

“It was surprising to me just how significant road transportation was, especially when you imagine [that] coal-fired power stations are burning relatively dirty fuel.”

Baltimore

One reason the researchers give for this finding is that vehicles are dense in likewise densely populated areas – which could increase the pollution exposure for large populations – whereas power plants are usually situated far from dense populations, and their emissions get deposited at a higher altitude.

Barrett says that a person whose death is pollution-related dies on average 10 years earlier than he or she otherwise would have.
Residents of Baltimore, MD, face the highest early emissions-related death rates.

When the MIT team analyzed the data on a state-by-state basis, they found that California’s residents have the worst exposure to air pollution, yielding about 21,000 premature deaths each year.

These deaths are mostly related to road transportation and emissions from both residential and commercial heating and cooking.

After mapping emissions in 5,695 cities across the US, the team found that Baltimore has the highest pollution-related mortality rate. In a given year, 130 out of every 100,000 residents will most likely die as a result of air pollution exposure.

Following closely behind automobile pollution, electricity generation emissions accounted for 52,000 early deaths each year.

The researchers note that the largest impact for deaths related to this type of pollution occurred in the east-central US and in the Midwest. They suggest a reason for this may be that Eastern power plants use coal with higher sulfur content than Western plants.

But the West Coast definitely did not escape health impacts. In Southern California alone, for example, marine-derived pollution from shipping and port activities accounted for 3,500 early deaths.

Barrett says:

“In the past 5 to 10 years, the evidence linking air-pollution exposure to risk of early death has really solidified and gained scientific and political traction.

There’s a realization that air pollution is a major problem in any city, and there’s a desire to do something about it.”

He notes that although the study is based on numbers from 2005, the results most likely represent today’s pollution health risks.

Source: Medical news today