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| Sunday, 5 February 2006 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Sulphur dioxide - Harmful or harmless? by Shanika Sriyananda
Sri Lanka Air Quality Index (SLAQI), which was officially released by the Colombo Fort Air Quality Monitoring Station clearly indicates a sharp rise in sulphur dioxide (SO2) in the ambient air. When compared to the statistics with last year's, it is quite clear that there has been an increase during the past few weeks. The SO2 level has exceeded the recommended levels in the SLAQI and has doubled during the past few weeks. The recommended level of the SLAQI is 0.082ppm but Fort has recorded 116 ppm of SO2 in the first week of January which had risen to 169ppm during last week. According to health officials, this is higher than the recommended level of SO2 of the World Health Organisation (WHO). To some of the top officials of the Ministry of Environment "it is seasonal" and to another few "SO2 is not so harmful to health compared with PM10". There can be no cover-up of the official data of a state owned monitoring station. And also the data from the particular monitoring station, which is in operation with less resources had provided reliable data for the last few years, and one cannot shelf it easily with invalid causes for the SO2 rise. However, the SO2 increase will not be a matter to worry about for healthy people, who travel in air conditioned vehicles, but will so for the poor children and adults who suffer from asthma. This fact is not locally researched, but has been proved in several international researches. For the past several years the officials at the same monitoring station raised an alarm on the sharp increases of a number of hazardous air pollutants - CO2, NO2, PM10, Hydro Carbons (HC) including SO2 in the ambient air. The blame lies fairly and squarely on unroadworthy vehicles emitting noxious fumes. According to statistics over 50 per cent of vehicles account for toxins in the air. The oil powered power stations in Colombo is yet another major contributor for this increase. No official can take this issue lightly, since it has gone on record that one to two school children in every classroom in Colombo schools have breathing problems. Identified as the most polluted area in the country, Colombo, with a population of over one million including 200,000 school children, frequently suffer from recurrent bouts of coughs, colds, asthmatic attacks, chest pain and breathing difficulties. The common complaints of many these days are eye irritation, sore throat and breathing difficulties. Research done by Prof. Manori Senanayake of the University of Colombo found a link between wheezing in children and SO2 and Oxides of Nitrogen in the air that they breathe. According to her study, the children admitted to the Lady Ridgeway Children's Hospital (LRCH) indicate that the number of children for treatment for wheezing is high on the heavily polluted days and low on days with less pollutants in the air. Another study by the Public Interest Law foundation (PILF) on air pollution in the city of Colombo found that people who spend three to eight hours or more on the road have higher incidences of all common respiratory symptoms and, especially, the slum dwellers who are compelled to breathe toxins, suffer from coughs, colds and eye irritation. According to Dr. Hemantha Wickramatillake, WHO expert for Europe on Air Pollution and Health stresses the need of applying the WHO Air Quality Guidelines to tackle the gravity of the situation. He said that this will help significantly to bring down the mortality rate and prevent disability from a highly preventable source of ill-health. "Application solely depends upon how far the authorities are keen, committed and interested in reducing pollution by implementing regulations and monitoring levels". he said. However, Dr. Wickramatillake said that the current trend of increase of SO2, which is exceeding the European Air Quality standards (it is in the range of 67ppm to 99ppm) shows an unhealthy environment for vulnerable groups, and they should avoid SO2 exposure. According to Dr. Wickramatillake, SO2 is water soluble and the chances of attacking nasal passages, throat and lungs were high and can easily enter the body. "Some studies have proved that the SO2 is capable of reaching the respiratory passage and then destroy its ability to fight infections", he added. **** What is Sulphur dioxide (SO2) SO2 (sulphur dioxide) in the air is caused due to the rise in combustion of fossil fuels. It can oxidize and form sulphuric acid mist. SO2 in the air leads to diseases of the lung and other lung disorders such as wheezing and shortness of breath. Long-term effects are more difficult to ascertain as SO2 exposure is often combined with that of Particulate Matter (PM). SO2 and health effects Due to its high solubility, sulphur dioxide is mainly absorbed during its journey through the mouth, nasal passages, and throat - and very little actually reaches as far as the lungs. However, lower areas of the respiratory system (including the alveoli) can be at a considerably higher risk of exposure during periods of exercise - for example, in the case of road-side joggers' and cyclists. "The major physiological effects of SO2 exposures are changes in the mechanical function of the upper airways. These changes include an increase in nasal flow resistance and a decrease in nasal mucus low rate. Laboratory animal exposures at high concentrations indicate that SO2 exposures can cause chronic bronchitis." (Godish, 1997: p158) Sulphur dioxide not only has a bad odour, it can irritate the respiratory system. Exposure to high concentrations for short periods of time can constrict the bronchi and increase mucous flow, making breathing difficult. Children, the elderly, those with chronic lung disease, and asthmatics are especially susceptible to these effects. Sulphur dioxide can also: * Immediately irritate the lung and throat at concentrations greater than 6 parts per million (ppm) in many people. * Impair the respiratory system's defense against foreign particles and bacteria, when exposed to concentrations less than 6 ppm for longer time periods. * Apparently enhance the harmful effects of ozone. (Combinations of the two gases at concentrations occasionally found in the ambient air appear to increase airway resistance to breathing.) Sulphur dioxide tends to have more toxic effects when acidic pollutants, liquid or solid aerosols, and particulate are also present. (In the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of excess deaths occurred in areas where SO2 concentrations exceeded 1 ppm for a few days and other pollutants were also high.) Effects are more pronounced among mouth breathers, e.g., people who are exercising or who have head colds. These effects include: * Health problems, such as episodes of bronchitis requiring hospitalization associated with lower-level acid concentrations. * Self-reported respiratory conditions, such as chronic cough and difficult breathing, associated with acid aerosol concentrations. (Asthmatic individuals are especially susceptible to these effects. The elderly and those with chronic respiratory conditions may also be affected at lower concentrations than the general population.) * Increased respiratory tract infections, associated with longer term, lower-level exposures to SO2 and acid aerosols. * Subjective symptoms, such as headaches and nausea, in the absence of pathologicalabnormalities, due to long-term exposure. Source : Health Effects Research, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Men enjoy seeing bad people suffer by Malcolm Ritter, AP Science Writer Bill Clinton said he felt others' pain. But a new brain-scanning study suggests that when guys see a cheater get a mild electric shock, they don't feel his pain much at all. In fact, they rather enjoy it. In contrast, women's brains showed they do empathize with the cheater's pain and don't get a kick out it. It's not clear whether this difference in schadenfreude - enjoyment of another's misfortune - results from basic biology or sex roles learned during life, researchers say. But it could help explain why men have historically taken charge of punishing criminals and others who violate societal rules, said researcher Dr. Klaas Stephan. Stephan, a senior research fellow at the University College London, is co-author of a study led by Tania Singer at the college and published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. Singer, in an e-mail message, said the sex difference in results was a surprise and must be confirmed by larger studies. The researchers said women might have reacted like men if the cheater suffered psychological or financial pain instead. The scientists scanned the brains of 16 men and 16 women after the volunteers played a game with what they thought were other volunteers, but who in fact were actors. The actors either played the game fairly or obviously cheated. During the brain scans, each volunteer watched as the hands of a "fair" player and a cheater received a mild electrical shock. When it came to the fair-player, both men's and women's brains showed activation in pain-related areas, indicating that they empathized with that player's pain. But for the cheater, while the women's brains still showed a response, men's brains showed virtually no specific reaction. Also, in another brain area associated with feelings of reward, men's brains showed a greater average response to the cheater's shock than to the fair player's shock, while women's brains did not. A questionnaire revealed that the men expressed a stronger desire than women did for revenge against the cheater. The more a man said he wanted revenge, the higher his jump in the brain's reward area when the cheater got a shock. No such correlation showed up in women. Philip Jackson, who studies brain systems responsible for empathy at the University of Laval in Quebec City in Canada, said he found the sex differences intriguing and worth following up on. The overall results elegantly tie together "a lot of things we either knew or suspected strongly" about how social interaction can affect the brain's activity, he said. - Nature Childhood infections take toll in later life Adult survivors of populations that had high levels of childhood infection are shorter in stature and die younger than those who lived in times of lower infection rates, according to a new study based on historical data. The researchers link the problems to the negative health effects of chronic inflammation. In England, France, Sweden and Switzerland in populations born before 1899, the scientists found that infant mortality rates, an indicator of exposure to infection, highly correlated to deaths from heart and circulatory diseases 40 to 69 years later. The problem, the authors said, is that people who live with high childhood infection levels carry elevated circulating levels of inflammatory proteins throughout their lives. That leads to more risk for heart attack and stroke. The paper appears today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Height, the researchers found, is also affected. People who have lived in highly infectious childhood environments are, on average, shorter than those who have not. The reason is that energy that the immune system uses would under healthier conditions increase growth. The effect persists in certain regions with widespread childhood infection, but will soon die out in Western industrialized countries. "For much of the world," said Eileen M. Crimmins, a professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California and the lead author on the study, "people will now be aging with less time spent with high inflammation. With public health improvements and immunizations, many of the sources of infection and inflammation have been eliminated, at least in some populations." Eight million born with birth defects each year: report About eight million children are born each year with a serious birth defect, and at least 3.3 million under the age of five die annually because of the abnormalities, the March of Dimes said Monday. The report, called Global Report on Birth Defects: The Hidden Toll of Dying and Disabled, said the majority of deadly or disabling birth defects are genetic or partly genetic in origin. The report's authors recommend controlling infections in pregnant women to curb birth defects. Hundreds of thousands of others are born with serious birth defects after their mothers were exposed to infectious diseases such as measles and syphilis, or environmental agents like alcohol. "Our report identifies for the first time the severe, and previously hidden global toll of birth defects," said Dr. Jennifer Howse, president of the March of Dimes. "This is a serious, vastly unappreciated and under-funded public health problem," she added in a release. An estimated 3.2 million of those born with serious birth defects may show lifelong mental and/or physical disabilities, according to the report. More than 94 per cent of births with serious defects and 95 per cent of deaths of these children occur in middle- and low-income countries, the report's authors said. Poorer countries face higher rates of birth defects not only because of the effects of poverty and lack of adequate health-care services, but also because of the higher risks of having children later in life and marrying blood relatives. The report documents prevalence rate and number of affected births in 193 countries. Together, five common birth defects of genetic or partially genetic origin - congenital heart defects, neural tube defects, the haemoglobin disorders thalassaemia and sickle cell disease, Down syndrome, and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PD) - accounted for about 26 per cent of all such birth defects in 2001. To reduce the incidence of birth defects, the report recommends: Ensuring women receive a healthy diet during their reproductive years. Controlling infections in pregnant women. Training health-care professionals in medical genetics. Identifying couples at higher risk of having children with genetic disorders. Establishing newborn screening programs to identify babies born with treatable metabolic disorders, such as phenylketonuria (PKU). Educating men and women of childbearing age about working with health providers to maximize chances of having a healthy baby. CBC News Holistic healing : Headache is a symptom; Sinusitis is inflammation by Dr. Danister L. Perera
The Ayurveda system of medicine describes three broad categories of the diseases of the head. These include: shirashula, shirobhitapa and shirovedana. The type of headache in these diseases is piercing, burning and dull headache respectively. Ayurveda lists diet, lifestyle, environment, psychological, season and injury as common causes of headache. It is to be noted that only 1% of headaches are serious. Causes of the diseases of the brain are broadly divided into six groups. These include: Nowadays, people often use the term Sinusitis for headache. In medical terminology sinusitis is a term used for headache which arises due to fluid collection in the sinuses. There seems to be an "epidemic" of sinus problems in developed countries and becoming a health burden in developing countries too. Each year, hundreds of thousands undergo surgery to clear sinuses that are so severely blocked, often as the result of infections resistant to drug treatment, that there seems to be no other way out. Millions take antibiotics and other prescription drugs to clear, or attempt to clear, repetitive infections and/or to alleviate the intense congestion caused by irritants and allergies. Sinusitis is frequently treated with antibiotics, corticosteroid sprays, decongestants and antihistamines. Prescription decongestant drugs have been shown to be potentially dangerous when mixed with certain antibiotics. All of these drugs have harmful side effects. There are tens of millions who purchase over-the-counter (OTC) remedies for their symptoms; some of the OTC drugs, such as those based on pseudoephedrine, can induce insomnia, while others, such as those based on common antihistamines, induce drowsiness. Antibiotics are notoriously indiscriminate in that they destroy valuable, benign bacteria as well as the unwelcome types. In addition, antibiotics can cause nausea and vomiting, diarrhea and irritation of the throat and mouth. Corticosteroids can produce trouble in breathing, facial swelling and difficulty in swallowing. Decongestants may cause nausea and vomiting, insomnia, trembling and weakness. Antihistamines can lead to drowsiness, blurred vision, ringing in the ears and abdominal pain. One avenue towards a possible solution for this health problem is to rely on traditional medicine: a continually evolving approach to healthy life that can be traced back to ancient times, but which illuminates current options for natural health care. Several possible causes for these sinus problems can be suggested. Direct irritation of the sinuses might be blamed on cigarette smoking, a practice undertaken by millions of people all over the world. Sinus irritation also arises from those who have used, or continue to use cocaine by inhalation of the powder. There are those who work daily, or at least frequently, in dusty, dirty, or polluted areas, not just in inner cities, but in farms, mines, and in rural factories that refine natural resources. Abnormalities of the immune system, leading to allergy and/or reduced ability to fight sinus infections, may arise from early curtailment of, or the failure to provide any, breast feeding of infants. Immune dysfunction can also be the result of exposure to powerful chemicals and drugs, common nutritional deficiencies, and from irregular habits associated with eating and sleeping. A further contributing factor to sinus problems may be lack of vigorous physical activity: Such activity dilates the sinuses and stimulates the circulation of air and cleansing mucus through the sinuses. All of these might be considered lifestyle and environmental factors that are characteristic of conditions for most people in the urbanized areas during the second half of the 20th century. Thus, it is not surprising to find the appearance of widespread nagging sinus disorders.
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Headache can be defined as discomfort or pain in the head. Tension,
migraine, cluster, cervicogenic, after injury, vascular and effort-induced
are some of the different types of headaches. In rare cases the headache may
be due to serious diseases such as bleeding in the space around the brain,
fever increased pressure on the brain, severe hypertension and inflammation
of some arteries. 
