Hola-
Who has two thumbs and starts a clean air blog in the middle of a pandemic while working in the ICU on the frontline? THIS DOC! I have to be honest, I bought this domain name back in 2018, but life as a full-time physician and mom has kept me from actually learning how to make a website. However, COVID19 has brought be back to the importance of ensuring that everyone breathes clean air.
We are seeing disproportionate effects of COVID-19 among populations who are forced to breathe lower quality air, and tobacco increases the mortality for COVID19. Stay safe. Flatten the curve. Stop the spread.
Sadly, from womb to tomb, unhealthy air increases our risk of disability, disease and death. COVID is laying bare so many flaws in our approach to healthcare. Preliminary studies in US (not peer-reviewed to date, so not mentioned here) are concerning, as are those seen in Italy, in an area known for its robust critical care.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749120320601?via%3Dihub).
Tobacco, too, increases the risk of death (if you use a robust study that has been peer-reviewed, rather than the pre-print, pre- peer-reviewed ahistorical hysteria that has been printed to date). (EG- https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007621)
Long story short = TLDR = Don’t light things on fire and breathe them into your lungs.
This is great!
Thank you!
I am so happy to see this blog, can’t wait to learn about air quality and lung health 🙂
Thanks for visiting!
“Don’t light things on fire and breathe them into your lungs” belongs on a T-shirt. Thanks for starting this! Excited to read more.
Great idea! When I figure out how to do fancier websites maybe I’ll add a T-shirt section. :o)
Well put! Sadly so may options these days for things to light on fire and breathe into your lungs. I wonder about lumping pollen in there with the things in the air that we breathe (maybe a different post) and is there some action we can/should take on this in addition to fighting smoking and pollution?
Absolutely! Climate change -> longer and more intense pollen seasons. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of American released a report in 2010 calling attention to this. Report is available here. https://www.aafa.org/media/1634/extreme-allergies-global-warming-report-2010.pdf
All of these things interact, and there is also an intersection with air pollution and more intense allergy experience. We focus a great deal on mortality, and of course pollen burden likely increases asthma and ACOS related mortality, but there is also an enormous economic cost to what I just term “general misery.” People suffering from allergies who are less productive at work because they are taking Benadryl or missing sick days or having their kid with allergies and asthma stay home, etc. It is all related. Thanks for bringing it up! Is definitely a planned future blog focus!