Exercise and bad air

An article in today's NY Times on athletes concerned about what air pollution is doing to their lungs:

SUSAN JAMES, a 50-year-old probation officer in Bakersfield, Calif., has been a competitive runner for almost three decades. “I’ve spent a lot of hours running through this city,” she said.

Which is beginning to worry her.

“Twenty years ago, I didn’t have asthma or allergies,” she said. Today, she has both, probably due to the same improbable cause. “My doctor told me I’m allergic to Bakersfield air,” she said. “I’m actually allergic to it.”

In May, the American Lung Association called Bakersfield the third-sootiest city in the country, behind Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.

When I moved to NYC for graduate school, I would routinely get around by bicycle. After a few months, I stopped going anywhere from Midtown south -- not because of the traffic, but because of all the gunk I was sucking up. I kept on riding through the park when going from my Columbia-area apartment to classes on East 78th Street, but after a couple of years I gave that up, too. Sore legs, good. Sore lungs and throat, bad.

Kenneth Rundell, the director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Marywood University in Scranton, Pa., said, “Athletes typically take in 10 to 20 times as much air,” and thus pollutants, with every breath as sedentary people do. . .

. . . a 2004 review of pollution studies worldwide conducted by the University of Brisbane, Australia, found that during exercise, low concentrations of pollutants caused lung damage similar to that caused by high concentrations in people not working out.

The article notes that studies are pointing to fine particulates, not ozone, as the main risk factor. This isn't exactly news, which is why I still shake my head to see so many runners and cyclists gravitating towards major thoroughfares. One thing to keep in mind that the article does not point out is that the presence of trees and other roadside greenery may be deceptive, in that they tend to raise fine particulate levels in their immediate area. There was a study written up in the NY Times many years ago, comparing soot levels along planted and barren parkways, and the differences were both significant and counterintuitive (at least until you think about it).

Posted by David on July 12, 2007 9:07 AM