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This is the first story appeared High Country News and is part of Climate Desk agreement.
The more researchers learn about the smoke, the more worrisome the picture becomes. Smoke contains small particles known as PM 2.5 because PM (particulate matter) measures 2.5 microns or less—small enough to enter our lungs and enter our bloodstream. Researchers have already linked the smoke to higher altitudes risk stroke, heart disease, respiratory disease, lung cancer, and other chronic diseases.
And its harm does not end there. 2024 was the next year of research on smoke and its effects on health, from brain function to fertility. Although there is still much to learn, wildfire smoke is considered very subtle in comparison to other sources of air pollution; its particle size, medium spikes, and high concentration of inflammatory compounds make it more dangerous.
This year’s findings are disturbing. But the more we learn about smoke, the better we can protect ourselves from it, whether we live hundreds of miles away from fires or face them directly like wildland firefighters do. Research emphasizes the need for other changes, including better air filtration systems in our homes, hospitals, schooland nursing homesand clean air environment for people who have nowhere else to breathe fresh air. Meanwhile, breathing for wildland firefighters being tested by the federal government. We must also reduce smoke pollution by adopting measures to reduce the risk and severity of wildfires, such as the way they are lit.
Here are some of the major advances in scientists’ understanding of wildfires in 2024:
New Estimates Predict 125 Million Americans Will Be Exposed to Unhealthy Air from Wildfires by 2054
Wildfire smoke has it deleted climate change in recent years, which is expected to continue. Millions of people will be exposed to unhealthy air in the coming years, according to reports examples released by the First Street Foundation in February. It is estimated that by 2054, more than 125 million Americans will be exposed to “red” air each year, which is considered good. unhealthy level with the Environmental Protection Agency-an increase of 50 percent from 2024. The Central Valley of California will see the worst, with Fresno and Tulare County probably experiencing three months a year of bad air, according to research.
Smoke Can Interfere With Fertility Treatment
The fires that started over Labor Day weekend in 2020 covered Oregon and some of them very bad breath in the country at that time. The 10 or more days of exposure to the smoke affected everyone, especially patients undergoing in vitro fertilization, or IVF. Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University studied 69 patients who underwent ovarian transplantation and IVF in the six weeks after the wildfires. Their study, published in the journal Childbirth and Reproduction in May, found that patients exposed to smoke produced fewer blastocysts – groups of cells that can become embryos – than those not exposed. Many of the patients are still pregnant, but the study’s lead author said he is concerned about the effects of the smoke on health care. He told a Idaho Capital Sun that, as an extra precaution, fertility providers may want to delay IVF or transfer the embryo to high-risk patients during the negative phase.
Wildfire Smoke Is Killing People Quickly
Thousands of people have died because of smoke than previously thought, according to research at the University of California, Los Angeles. New research published in the journal Science Advances in June found that particulate matter caused 52,500 to 55,700 premature deaths from 2008 to 2018 in California. According to its authors, this is the first long-term study to examine deaths caused by years of exposure to wildfire smoke in a country that, like other Western countries, sees frequent and severe wildfires.
Smoke Exposure Is Bad for Adolescent Mental Health
Researchers at University of Colorado Boulder found that secondhand smoke increases the risk of mental health problems in young people. The learningpublished in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in September, analyzed data from 10,000 adolescents who participated in the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States, according to the university. Each additional day that the children were exposed to “unsafe” readings in 2016 increased the likelihood that they would develop symptoms of depression and anxiety—even up to a year later.
The Fire Age May Cause Neurodegenerative Diseases
Lab rats are not people. But in a controlled environment, they can provide important information about a person’s health. Researchers who exposed mice to the same amount of smoke as a wildfire firefighter could retire after 15 to 30 years of work. found that they suffer from brain diseases more than mice that have not been exposed. The animal’s genetic profile is consistent with a pattern that shows the same type of damage as the effects of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases. Although researchers cannot prove that smoke is the cause of chronic disease, lead author Adam Schuller said Boise State Public Radio that wildland firefighters need to know how long-term firefighting can affect the human brain.
Wildfire Smoke Linked to Dementia
Breathing in particulate matter has already been linked to an increased risk of dementia. Now, researchers say, smoke from fires may pose a greater risk than other sources of pollution. Screening of over 1.2 million people in Southern California found that long-term exposure to secondhand smoke—three years, in this study—was associated with a higher risk of dementia. According to the study, published in the journal JAMA Neurology, the risk of dementia increased by 18 percent for every microgram per cubic meter increase in wildfire damage over three years, a small amount. About comparisonThe average PM 2.5 exposure of the census tract near the 2018 Camp Fire in California was 1.2 micrograms per cubic meter between 2006 and 2020, spiking to reflect 310 micrograms per cubic meter during the actual fire.
