Risk of Stroke from Air Pollution?

Before handling global warming, we’d better look at a problem closer to home – air pollution. It’s now been shown that fairly conclusively that daily levels of airborne particles smaller than 10 microns are linked with hospital admissions for ischemic stroke (that’s the brain artery blockage kind of stroke, not the hemorrhagic kind). This was established in a study of nine US cities – Birmingham Ala., Chicago, Cleveland, New Haven Conn., Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, and Seattle.

Previous studies have established a link between air pollution and the risk of heart attack and worsening of heart failure. But the stroke linkage is new. And daily levels of carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide were also linked with the increased risk of stroke. More reason to press for better emission controls, and tighter inspections of manufacturers’ excretions.