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Scientists Find a Pill Against Air Pollution

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Birds fly across the sky at daybreak oveAir pollution poses a serious health risk, causing painful and often deadly heart and lung disease, as well as being the reason for millions of premature deaths around the world. Everyone knows the solution- “Stop Polluting!”, yet secretly there is that desire to just take a pill and make it all go away with minimum effort or sacrifice. US scientists think it is actually possible.

Yes, you read correctly. Apparently there is a medicine that can prevent tiny particles from diesel and fossil fuel burning from affecting the lungs and the heart. And the good news does not end here. It looks like the miracle pill is not something newly created, in fact, it is a commonly prescribed medicine used to lower cholesterol.

The study was conducted by a team of US specialists from various leading institutes in the field of health research. The tests were performed on nearly 2000 subjects with the aim to establish a link between fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and cardiovascular mortality, measured through proteins that cause systematic inflammations and heart disease.

The results indicated that the group taking commonly known statins, did not show any signs that could indicate correlation between the two variables, unlike the control group, which was not given the medicine. The findings coincided with an earlier studies, independently conducted by scientists from University of Michigan, with a much smaller test group of less than 100 subjects, and a national study performed on a bit less than 6000 subjects. The latter study found an additional benefit of statins, showing that they also reduce the effect of carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide in addition to the particulates.

All studies are conclusive that although scientifically the medicine is not yet ready to be given to everyone against air pollution, we might not be too far off from it. Nevertheless, I do believe that no one should rely on this, and we should all continue with our joint efforts to eliminate pollution and fossil fuel burning.

image (c) Getty

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