Doctors Might Have Been Focusing on the Wrong Asthma Triggers
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
There has been awesome citizen science work going on helping people understand the direct link between anything that emits smoke and asthma attacks: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.1315
They even found that parents waiting to pick up kids at schools with their ICE engines running increased PM2.5 inside the entire building by orders of magnitude.
This data helped the kids teach their parents to stop their engines when waiting outside the school in order to help their asthmatic classmates.
The transition to EV is going to have a positive impact on people’s health and make city life better.
It's a city which _loves_ cars.
I used to cycle about 20 minutes to the office, the view was beautiful but the traffic was horrendous. I used to wheeze and struggle with breathing a lot more than usual. The doctor diagnosed me with "seasonal asthma" and gave me a ventolin prescription, which I've never felt the need to refill since leaving.
The doctor told me there was some phenomenon which made the air pollution worse, something about the reflection of the water from the harbor ? I wish I could remember what it was called.
It's anecdotal but that was my experience.
Australia has one of the highest rates of asthma in the world, with higher rates in rural and regional areas than the cities. Sydney also has a high rate of moulds which can be triggers due to its often humid environment and poor building standards (cf Melbourne for example where houses are more ruggedised)
Coastal regions are way better for asthmatics. the dry salty air. gold coast/sunshine coast.
Temperature inversion? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology)
What a ridiculous supposition.
First the weight difference is not that huge, second EV's use regenerative breaking for a huge portion of their breaking spectrum bypassing break pads entirely.
[1]https://www.ridef2.com/blog-del-direttore-ridef/will-electri...
[2]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522...
And the claim is a bit dubious, imo. It looks like they're counting "resuspension" (kicking up existing settled PM2.5 in the wake) as a source.
[1]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522...
It's almost as if regenerative breaking reduces break wear and compensates for the marginal increase weight as many other people have already pointed out?
- most PM 2.5 pollution is produced by brake pad and tire wear
- which [i.e. PM 2.5 pollution produced by brake pad and tire wear] is made worse by EVs due to their weight
These are direct quotes from my links:
- "A large fraction (50-85% and up to 90%) of traffic generated PM10 and PM2,5 is not due to the exhaust emissions by the motor, but rather to non-exhaust emissions (brake wear, road wear, tyre wear and road dust resuspension)"
- "A positive relationship exists between vehicle weight and non-exhaust emissions."... "Electric vehicles are 24% heavier than their conventional counterparts."
Both are true. However, without factoring in decreased friction-brake usage in EVs (due to regenerative braking), this point is meaningless or deceptive.
Personally, I would like light EVs.
> A positive relationship exists between vehicle weight and non-exhaust emissions."
As others already pointed out, that is the same study, the same study that found that EV's create less particulate pollution. The more weight = more particulate emission part did not control for EV regenerative breaking. So your position is ignorant at best and disingenuous at worse.
This will be my last comment here on the account that I will not debate facts with random people on the internet. If you can't be bothered to read the study, don't cite it, don't reference it and for god's sake don't try to use it to say something that is literally the opposite of it's findings.
But if that is all you have to add to this discussion, I wonder why you bothered.
EV and Hybrid cars have regen braking which reduces brake pad wear. I don't know about PM2.5 but hybrids also emit much less NOx than straight gasoline cars.
And there are plenty of big SUVs that have a similar weight to the heavier EVs.
Besides, you can't assume that electric cars use the same tires as non-electric ones.
There is a huge range of tires out there from extremely long wearing ones to sticky ones that last a fraction of the time.
Pollution was down. Stress was down. People staying at home means cleaner houses. Sharp temperature changes were down... probably, you'd miss the commute big ups and downs but also miss the office climate control. Peoples lives were mostly more controlled, far less variance.
And viruses were down.
> The ensuing months, to everyone’s surprise, turned into “this beautiful year,” Lawson told me. Scarlett hasn’t had a single asthma attack. Not a single visit to the ER. Nothing. She’s breathing so much better,
This doesn't fit with viruses, wouldn't lack of viruses only account for severe ER attacks that happen during a few scattered periods, not the whole year. It will be a mix, but 80:20, it should be one big thing.
I did also start a new medication, Montelukast, around the time of the first lockdown, so it could conceivably be due to that in my case - but not having a chest infection at all for the last 18 months whereas I used to get one a year or so has been lovely.
[0] https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-r...
For me since then most of the symptoms in the list on that page have actually improved. The only thing my doctor (in The Netherlands) warned me about was the bad/vivid dream part, before Montelukast I could hardly remember dreaming but now I do almost daily (but I am also sleeping much better).
Friend of mine cannot forget to take it, or their chest/airways are quite heavy.
Does it take time for the body wean off?
maybe also check out a Ciclesonide inhaler (alvesco, another steroid) which has helped me a lot in my cardio. I can get that last 5-10% into my lungs and don't have those tiny wheezes at peak respiration.
And I'll make a note of that drug for the future thanks!
-- I got on steroids last year. Had huge increase in use of albuterol over the last 2 years. For like a decade i barely used anything, inhaler sat in the bottom of my climbing bag.
I'm in Denver, really bad pollution and the fire smoke is literally unlivable at its worst.
When I was a kid my neighbor always wore a mask while he was cutting his lawn. He had asthma that was pretty easily triggered and he said it made a big difference.
[1] https://www.irceline.be/en/air-quality/measurements/particul...
I imagine that keeping schoolchildren home from those schools would substantially help their respiratory health.
If kids can learn by themselves, this could change everything.
But currently my kid likes unboxing videos and nothing else. School is forced variety and social skills..