City children suffer serious lung damage

Children in polluted inner cities are five times more likely than those outside to develop weak and damaged lungs - greatly increasing their risk of premature death, researchers have found.

Children in polluted inner cities are five times more likely than those outside to develop weak and damaged lungs - greatly increasing their risk of premature death, researchers have found.

Air pollution experts said that the study had unearthed powerful new evidence that existing controls on air pollution from traffic and factories will need to be greatly strengthened.

The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, follow a nine-year study of the link between child health and air pollution, involving more than 1,700 children and teenagers living around Los Angeles.

Scientists at the University of Southern California discovered that regular exposure to heavy levels of air pollution - chiefly from traffic - meant it was extremely likely that city children would grow up with permanent lung damage.

Scientists now believe that "critically low lung function" is second only to smoking as a cause of death.

Weak lungs are now believed to increase the risk of lung cancers or breathing disorders, because particles from air pollution, particularly from diesel exhausts, pass into the blood stream through the lungs. They also put the heart under much greater stress in later life, increasing the risks of coronaries.

Experts say that air pollutants produce chronic inflammation of lung tissues, or stop the lungs' smallest air sacs from growing properly.

Tim Brown, deputy director of the National Society for Clean Air, said these findings suggested there might be no safe level of air pollution: "Any reduction in pollution will be beneficial. We need to do a lot more to clean up city air."