Health Effects of Breathing Dust
Who thinks much about dust or the health risks associated with breathing it? It is a topic most of us don’t consider as seriously as we should. Sure, we occasionally here a news story about the ill effects but with so much going on, its an easy topic to ignore.
The average person takes about 20 breaths per minute, which works out to almost 30,000 breaths per day. Clearly this is an activity which we spend considerable time, if not effort. Each one of those breaths contain dust, bacteria, germs, soot, fumes, pollen and many other harmful material. It is true that our bodies have some built in filtration functions but why overtax the body? Estimates vary widely but some suggest interior air can be 10 or more times as polluted as outside air. If the man made indoor pollution is that concentrated should we really believe our bodies were designed for that? Not likely.
We humans live in closer proximity to each other than ever before. That proximity intensifies the airborne particles from vehicles, other people, animals, manufacturing and other sources. Some well known airborne diseases are influenza, diphtheria, hay fever, tuberculosis, colds, viruses, pneumonia, scarlet fever, measles, etc.
When we think about dust its not just dust it is made up of a vast array of materials. Most of the materials are not good, such as; soot, dander, sand, smoke, fibers, insects, hair, not to mention chemical fumes. The US Weather Service estimates that one cubic inch of air could contain as much as 100,000 particles of dust. Worse yet, each piece of dust can contain thousands of germs.
A human living indoors is a relatively new phenomenon, at least with more or less sealed buildings. Only one hundred years ago our buildings had no air conditioning, central heat, weather-stripping, thermal pane windows, insulation or any of the modern products currently used to effectively seal the inside air from the outside.
Health statistics show that incidence of asthma which is known to be aggravated by air pollution is rising dramatically in the USA. The health risks are too great to ignore the regular use and replacement of a good air conditioning filter
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Tagged With Air Conditioning Filter, Asthma, Breathing, Disease, furnace filter, Germs, Health Risks, Pollution
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