Air Pollution - Must Know Facts!

Hello friends ! I am Dr. Piyush Goel. I am consultant Pulmonologist and critical care specialist.

Today we will discuss about one of the most happening topic which we are discussing in day to day life that is air pollution. Right, we talk a lot about air pollution.

What is air pollution? It can affect your lungs, it can affect your heart, you, beside living in daily NCR in wrong area, you have a large exposure of air pollution at most of the things, most of the allergies, most of the lung infections, and most of the heart diseases are because of this air pollution. You all know this. You all know about this thing. You have read all these thing in the newspaper, but we just have to know how it affects your body? What is, basically first, what is air pollution, what are the contents of this air pollution? What is smoke? What is particulate matter? We heard lot of particulate matter. PM 2.5 so you just have to know about all these thing and how it affect your lung, how it effect you heart and other body parts.

So we will discuss all these things and how to avoid exposure to air pollution .what are the things you have to do to avoid air pollution. Right, so air pollution is basically because of our day to day activities right. First and foremost is combustion of fossil fuels which we are using in day to day activities like when we drive a car. We are, we are emitting lot of gas. Our car, our scooter, our bike is emitting lot of gases which can lead to air pollution. By burning of petroleum products like diesel and other things. Right, so the burning of fossil fuels is one of the most important reasons. The other types of air pollution are the greenhouse gases which are emitting into environment like as emitting from you refrigerator and from your AC which we call as hydrofluorocarbon, then there are other chemicals also in environment like lead, mercury and dioxin's and benzene and other chemicals and other compounds which also lead into air pollution right!

Then there are other things which are not because of human that is basically the pollens. The presence of moisture in air leading to increase amount of mound and pollen in air which are also contribution for air pollution and all these things can lead to very harmful effects on your lungs, on you hearts, on your kidneys and other body parts like central nervous system and in children it can lead to liver diseases also and gastrointestinal disorders also. So many times you heard about levels of pm in your cities. Pm level in you surrounding .you have heard about pm level in newspapers.

So what’s this pm level ? This is basically particulate matter .how this particulate matter forms? Particulate matter is formed when the smoke ,dust, dust from the construction sites,dust from your pavement of roads and dust from other places where ever you do some exclamation. This dust with smoke with some other organic compounds and with some water vapors due to moisture in air .when they combine together they will form a pm means particulate matter and you heard about pm 2.5. So what is meant by pm 2.5? It is basically the diameter of that particulate matter that is 2.5 microns which is very small.

For example you have seen a single hair. It is 70 times less than that of a single hair the diameter is that .so this Pm 2.5 compound or this molecule can go directly into the lungs or in the deeper airways where it can go to the direct blood circulations and it can go to the heart , it can go to the valve, kidneys and brain which can lead to multiple problems.it can lead to heart diseases it can lead to stroke it can cause lung diseases asthma ,Copt and other lung diseases also . So this is what is PM 2.5. So how you avoid this pm 2.5. Right.

How you will, What are the precarious you take? First whenever you have pm 2.5 levels more than upper normal limits you can avoid going outdoor avoid doing physical activities right, outdoor. Right, avoid going to walk. Avoid. Stay inside. Stay inside your home. Right. Most of the times. And whenever you stay inside, you have to tool your doors. You, most of the, at least most of the time and the day. Right and you can use the mesh also you can invest in mesh. If you want to invest , There are some meshes which filter these particulate matter and other dust particle and also it will be a barrier for insects also such things will not enter into your home and then you can use some plants also this will adds to your decorum also.

There are some plants which are for this basic purpose to reduce particulate matter and dust into your house.so if you want to go out door you can use n95 mask. You can wear the N95 mask. Especially for those patients who are asthmatic patients, who have history of allergies and at this part of time I can only say this thing to you that if you have any allergies, if you have any breathing troubles, if you have any chest infections right now you can come to and contact me via Lybrate and you can come back to me at my hospital in Colombia and I'm seeing patients at my residence also so you can come and see me.

Thank you