A study by the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) suggested that exposure to air pollution consisting of fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) could heighten the risks of congenital heart defects in infants, and decreased muscle mass and increased body fat in older people.
While the annual average PM2.5 concentration in Taiwan has declined each year, current levels remain unhealthy for certain sensitive groups, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences research fellow Guo Yue-liang (郭育良) said on Monday.
As PM2.5 is lighter, and can stay in the air longer and travel farther, it can penetrate deeply into the lungs or the circulatory system, and studies have also linked particle pollution exposure to increased risk of heart, lung and other respiratory diseases, as well as dementia and diabetes.
The NHRI study analyzed 782 cases of infants with congenital heart defects and 4,692 healthy infants, comparing the particulate matter concentration levels of where their mothers live, and found that particle pollution was generally higher in the places where the mothers of infants with congenital heart defects live.
The third to eighth week of pregnancy is a critical period for fetal heart development, so if the mother was exposed to high concentrations of particulate matter during this time, it could travel through the bloodstream to the placenta and have a negative effect on the infant, Guo said.
The study also analyzed the health exam results of 4,818 older people and found a link between exposure to higher PM2.5 concentrations and decreased muscle mass and increased body fat.
However, a further study of the causal relationship is needed, the NHRI said.
The main sources of outdoor particle pollution are traffic and industrial emissions, as well as outdoor burning, while the main sources of indoor particle pollution are cooking and burning incense, Guo said, adding that the use of an exhaust hood in the kitchen can also affect indoor pollution levels.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching