3 ms·

This seems like one of those not terribly relevant statements one can make for any environmental factor that correlates with lower life expectancy. Aging is dam

This seems like one of those not terribly relevant statements one can make for any environmental factor that correlates with lower life expectancy. Aging is damage, age-related disease is caused by damage, and thus people with shorter life expectancies have more damage and more age-related disease. Air pollution is quite well correlated with lower life expectancy, though it is one of those factors, like wealth, intelligence, education, and social status, that are all entwined with one another and with observed variations in life expectancy. There are direct mechanisms whereby exposure to pollutants can cause harm, but it is also true that there is evidence for the genetics of intelligence to also provide greater physical robustness. There is no really good data to sort out which of the mix of many correlations is actually driving the observed relationships between air pollution and age-related disease, given that greater wealth means evading or lowering air pollution, and the true causes of the wealth-longevity relationship are obscure. Much the same could be said for any of the individual relationships in this web.

internaut 10y ago
> Air pollution is quite well correlated with lower life expectancy, though it is one of those factors, like wealth, intelligence, education, and social status, that are all entwined with one another and with observed variations in life expectancy. I'm not so sure about that actually, which surprises even me. Outside, it is a problem of regulation and I won't touch that here. Inside the home in rich countries e.g. Ireland, US, I hear building inspectors say that if normal home air quality was extant in restaurants they would be immediately shut down. So there is a technological problem here. I also heard from a lifetime expert in HVAC say that venting air from cooking food with our appliances does not actually work properly at all, and also that we introduce humid air into our homes for which there is apparently (so I'm told) no current controls and this causes mold growths thus lowering IAQ. I'm not an expert but it does seem like more could be done. In my history I have a nice few videos documenting some evidence about the importance of IAQ and improving it, if you're interested I'll dig them up.
- Aegon 10y ago
  I would be really interested in seeing those videos - and I am sure other readers would appreciate it as well!
  - internaut 10y ago
    From this thread "How Trees Calm Us Down": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12053272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12053272 Japanese researcher describes (with control group) the interesting affects of walking in a forest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jPNll1Ccn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jPNll1Ccn0 Indian researcher describes side affects of indoor plants on health esp. air quality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmn7tjSNyAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmn7tjSNyAA I'm incorporating some of these concepts into my tiny house design e.g. a (truly ingenious design using mirrors!) terrarium and an hinoki ofuro, together with natural daylighting. A poster called mantesso offered up this interesting paper: Here's the original study from NASA, Interior Landscape plants for indoor air pollution abatement : http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930073077.pdf http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/1993007...

internaut 10y ago

> Air pollution is quite well correlated with lower life expectancy, though it is one of those factors, like wealth, intelligence, education, and social status, that are all entwined with one another and with observed variations in life expectancy. I'm not so sure about that actually, which surprises even me. Outside, it is a problem of regulation and I won't touch that here. Inside the home in rich countries e.g. Ireland, US, I hear building inspectors say that if normal home air quality was extant in restaurants they would be immediately shut down. So there is a technological problem here. I also heard from a lifetime expert in HVAC say that venting air from cooking food with our appliances does not actually work properly at all, and also that we introduce humid air into our homes for which there is apparently (so I'm told) no current controls and this causes mold growths thus lowering IAQ. I'm not an expert but it does seem like more could be done. In my history I have a nice few videos documenting some evidence about the importance of IAQ and improving it, if you're interested I'll dig them up.

Aegon 10y ago
I would be really interested in seeing those videos - and I am sure other readers would appreciate it as well!
- internaut 10y ago
  From this thread "How Trees Calm Us Down": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12053272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12053272 Japanese researcher describes (with control group) the interesting affects of walking in a forest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jPNll1Ccn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jPNll1Ccn0 Indian researcher describes side affects of indoor plants on health esp. air quality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmn7tjSNyAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmn7tjSNyAA I'm incorporating some of these concepts into my tiny house design e.g. a (truly ingenious design using mirrors!) terrarium and an hinoki ofuro, together with natural daylighting. A poster called mantesso offered up this interesting paper: Here's the original study from NASA, Interior Landscape plants for indoor air pollution abatement : http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930073077.pdf http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/1993007...