Parents' stress tied to pollution's effect on kids

Children living in families with high voltage are more vulnerable to lung damage from pollution trafficking of children who are less stressed parents, according to a new study.

"It is illogical," said Dr. Jane Clougherty University of Pittsburgh, who was not involved in this study. "The wear and tear caused by stress ... can make individuals more sensitive to the effects of traffic-related air pollution."

The researchers took measurements of several indicators of lung function in almost 1400 children living in southern California.

They also predicted that the amount of traffic pollutants, and children are exposed through a sample of 1000 nearly in different places throughout the region. In particular, researchers are looking for oxides of nitrogen are formed when fuel is burned. Nitrogen oxides, can damage lung tissue and aggravate asthma, and explain in an article published in the American Journal of Respiratory Care Medicine and critical situations.

Six years ago, parents and children to complete a questionnaire about the level of tension. How to ask questions often feel unable to deal with personal problems or felt in control, for example.

Levels of air pollution on a large scale, depending on where the children live, in six parts of nitrogen oxide to 101 billion parts per billion.

For children from homes of high voltage when the average amount of nitrogen oxides in the air from 22 parts per billion, and lung function is about five percent is the worst.

The same increase in the pollutants on the child and his parents and low-tension, no difference in lung function with them, however.

Dr Talat Islam at the University of Southern California and lead author of the study, said he expected the tension to increase the impact of pollution on children, but he was surprised that the increase in air pollution does not affect children from low-stress homes.

"We feel all the power of the movement of air pollution in these children who were exposed to high pressure," Islam told Reuters.

Islam is not a set of test, whether this decline in lung function among these children has any effect on the health or comfort.

Earlier study by some researchers, the same was found that children who are exposed to traffic related air pollution and home high-stress, is 51 percent more likely to develop asthma than children who were exposed to these pollutants, but in low-stress environment (see the report Reuters .21 July 2009).

It is not clear what could be the relationship between family stress and pollution and lung function, but Islam says that the stress associated with persistent inflammation and tissue damage.

Clougherty said he thinks it is important that the parents - if they have a choice - their children's exposure to air pollution and traffic when deciding where to live, play and school.

But as is clear from the results, she said, "can not be the social environment of equal if not more, important to the health of the whole child.