Last December the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) condemned Spain for “systematic non-compliance with air quality in Madrid and in the Barcelona metropolitan area”.
Since 2008, Member States have to comply with the 2008/50/EC directive on air quality, which establishes 40 micrograms the annual exposure limit for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a harmful substance associated with combustion vehicles.
Other countries, such as Sweden, do comply with the regulations and their environmental efforts are already delivering results in terms of health: as air pollution in Stockholm has decreased, the lung capacity of children and adolescents has also improved. These are data from a study published in the “European Respiratory Journal” conducted by researchers at the Karolinska Institute, some important results, since the lung health of young people greatly affects the risk of developing chronic lung diseases in the future.
“We have seen a decrease in air pollutants and therefore an increase in air quality in Stockholm in the last 20 years,” says study author Erik Melén, “we also wanted to examine whether the lungs of children had improved during this period.
The study used a cohort from the BAMSE project, in which researchers have followed around 4,000 people born between 1994 and 1996. The children received a questionnaire to answer and spirometric tests to assess their lung function at ages 8, 16 and 24. . .
The researchers primarily estimated concentrations of air pollutants, primarily from traffic, in places where the participants lived from birth to early adulthood.
Overall, air pollution was around 40% lower in Stockholm between 2016 and 2019 than between 2002 and 2004. In some places, it had decreased by 60%; in others, there was no significant difference in air quality.
“When we compare people who live in areas where air quality has improved and those where it hasn’t, we saw that lung function improved by a small percentage in participants in the young adult age group», comments Zhebin Yu. “But most of all, we were able to see a 20 percent lower risk of having significantly impaired lung function.”
The lower the lung capacity as an adult, the higher the risk of chronic lung diseases such as COPD, cardiovascular disease and premature death
The researchers conclude that lower exposure to airborne pollutants, even at relatively low levels, is associated with improvements in the development of lung function from childhood to early adulthood.
The results are important as optimal lung development during childhood is a powerful determinant of good health in adulthood.
“If you have reduced lung capacity as an adult, you are at increased risk of chronic lung diseases like COPD, cardiovascular disease, and premature death. So by improving air quality, we reduce the likelihood that children will develop chronic diseases in the future.”
Previous studies from the BAMSE project have shown that lung function growth can improve and deteriorate over time, and these new results show that air pollution may play an important role in this.