Among environmental factors that have a constant and direct impact on the body, air plays the most important role.
Without air, it is unthinkable to maintain vital functions for any length of time. This is a source of oxygen, the constant supply of which to the body is necessary for oxidative processes and the maintenance of life.
Air is necessary for breathing.
It takes a large part in the body's heat metabolism.
The air environment is widely used in medicine as a preventive and therapeutic agent.
An adult inhales 15-20 m 3 of air during the day, the purity of which is of great importance for health. Even tiny impurities in the air harmful substances, dust or pathogenic microorganisms adversely affect human health. At the same time, the air is constantly polluted with carbon dioxide, dust, smoke, car exhaust gases, waste different industries. The observed, despite this, relative constancy of the composition and purity of the atmosphere is due to the powerful forces of self-purification: wind; flushing effect of sediments; the chemical action of oxygen and ozone, which oxidize organic and other impurities; plants that absorb carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen; ultraviolet radiation from the sun, due to which water vapor in the upper layers of the atmosphere decomposes to form oxygen. However, the natural forces of self-purification are not enough to maintain the purity of the atmosphere in populated areas. It is necessary to implement a number of measures for sanitary protection atmospheric air from pollution (creation of treatment facilities, improvement of production technology, modernization of vehicles, improvement of city planning, expansion of green spaces, etc.). This issue is discussed in more detail in the course “Fundamentals of Ecology.”
In close contact with the air, the human body is exposed to its physical factors. It is influenced by solar radiation, temperature, humidity, air speed, pressure, atmospheric electricity, etc. Let's look at this in more detail below.
Air composition and its hygienic importance
Atmospheric air is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon and other inert gases.
Oxygen (21%) – the most important component of air. It is necessary for oxidative processes and is found in the blood mainly in a chemically bound hemoglobin state, forming oxyhemoglobin, which is transported by red blood cells to the cells of the body. At rest, a person absorbs an average of 12 liters of oxygen per hour, and during physical work several times more. Exhaled air contains 25% less oxygen. A deterioration in general well-being and a decrease in performance are noted at an oxygen concentration of 13-14%; at 7-8%, death occurs. This can be observed in confined spaces (submarines, shelters). The acceptable limit for reducing the oxygen level in them is considered to be 17-18%. In its pure form, oxygen has a toxic effect. The oxygen that is given to patients with therapeutic purpose– this is air containing 35% oxygen.
Nitrogen (78%) – a physiologically indifferent gas, serves as an oxygen diluent. The amount of it in inhaled and exhaled air is the same. Under conditions of high pressure, nitrogen can have a narcotic effect and disrupt neuromuscular coordination, so during diving work they began to replace it with an inert gas - helium.
Carbon dioxide (0.03-0.04%) - is formed during the respiration of humans and animals, combustion of fuel and oxidation of many organic substances. Maintaining its quantity at a relatively constant level is ensured by the removal of excess through precipitation and absorption in the light by green plants. There is 100 times more CO2 in exhaled air than in inhaled air. At rest, a person exhales 22.6 liters of CO 2 per hour. Signs of deterioration in health appear with prolonged inhalation of air containing 1.0-1.5% CO 2. At a concentration of 3-4% CO 2, headache, general weakness, shortness of breath, palpitations, etc. appear. This may occur in sealed rooms.
Harmful gaseous impurities . These include carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carcinogenic hydrocarbons, etc., entering the atmosphere with car exhaust, industrial emissions, and fuel combustion. We will discuss their effect on the body in more detail below. In rooms with large crowds of people, there may be the presence of foul-smelling gases, which are a complex of gaseous substances that are products of the decomposition of sweat and other secretions of the skin, oral cavity, dirty linen, etc. if hygiene rules are not followed. In addition to a feeling of disgust, they cause headaches, sometimes nausea, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure and shallow breathing. Foul-smelling gases reduce mental and physical performance and have a harmful effect on nervous system.
Mechanical impurities in the air . In addition to foreign gases, various mechanical impurities enter the atmosphere in the form of soil particles, smoke, ash and soot. This may cause mechanical irritation of the mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract and eyes. With systematic exposure, catarrhal processes develop in the nasopharynx, bronchi and lungs, as well as chronic conjunctivitis. Dust also has an adverse effect on the skin, especially at high temperatures. When it settles on the skin, it makes sweating difficult and contributes to the development of certain skin diseases. Radioactive dust poses a great danger.
Air microflora . The atmosphere is not a favorable environment for bacteria; once they get into it, they die relatively quickly due to drying out, the bactericidal effect of the sun's ultraviolet rays and the lack of nutrient material. On the contrary, the air of poorly ventilated rooms contains a significant number of microbes, some of which may be pathogenic. Influenza, acute respiratory diseases, tonsillitis, diphtheria, smallpox, tuberculosis, whooping cough, plague and some other diseases can be transmitted through the air. There are two ways of transmitting infection through the air: airborne droplets and dust. In the first case, infection occurs as a result of inhalation of tiny droplets of saliva, sputum, mucus secreted by patients while talking, coughing, sneezing; in the second case - through dust suspended in the air. The more dust, the more abundant the microflora. Therefore, the fight against dust in homes is also the fight against bacterial air pollution.
To prevent the transmission of infection, it is necessary to follow basic rules of behavior when coughing, constantly ventilate and wet clean the premises.
In elderly people Negative influence factors environment and dustiness is aggravated due to the natural decrease in the drainage function of the respiratory tract during the aging of the body, a decrease in the synthesis of natural protective factors, primarily immunoglobulin A.
Indoor air pollution is also important, especially due to the combustion of bioorganic fuels in homes with stove heating. Indoor air pollution from the burning of wood and other biofuels is estimated to cause illness and death in 2 million women and children each year in developing countries.
In such communities, indoor air pollution is a more important risk factor chronic bronchitis and in general chronic obstructive pulmonary disease than sulfur oxide or other components of exhaust gases, even in cities with a high concentration of population and traffic. The increase in the list and actual presence of allergens in the environment leads to the fact that every 10 years the incidence of bronchial asthma increases by more than 1.5 times.
In general, risk factors for lung diseases can also be divided into two types according to the effectiveness of their elimination: irreversible and reversible.
Fatal (internal) risk factors cannot be corrected, removable Risk factors are things that can be changed by taking appropriate measures or making adjustments to your lifestyle (Table 1). Some diseases respiratory system caused by a hereditary factor. Such diseases include, for example, bronchial asthma.
Avoidable factors include those that can be controlled, their burden can be reduced, or completely prevented. Particularly harmful to human health are bad habits, first of all, smoking mixtures, etc. It should be emphasized that smoking enhances the adverse effects of occupational factors and the inhalation environment at home. There is a significant relationship between mortality from cardiovascular accidents and smoking (including passive smokers).
Components included in the composition tobacco smoke, cause vasoconstriction. Spasm of the coronary arteries occurs after smoking every cigarette, even with passive smoking. The elasticity of blood vessels decreases, conditions for the formation of cholesterol plaques are created, and the likelihood of thrombosis increases.
This further increases the risk of developing. Smoking enhances the effects associated with lipid metabolism disorders and hypercholesterolemia. It has been shown that smokers suffering from heart disease are 50-60% more likely to develop myocardial infarction and stroke. Passive smoking is the inhalation of ambient air containing tobacco products from other people, usually indoors. Evidence base scientific research demonstrates that passive smoking, like regular actual smoking, increases a person’s risk of developing disease, disability, and death.
Prevention of lung diseases in modern conditions
Environmental pollution caused by the release of various substances into the air chemical compounds, causes irritation of the respiratory mucosa, which reduces resistance to adverse factors. Elderly people experience this pollution especially hard due to limited mobility and the inability to change their place of residence during unfavorable periods.
Quit smoking and avoid secondhand smoke.
Smoking is one of the main causes of lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, and chronic bronchitis. Complete smoking cessation is the only reliable way treatment and prevention of lung diseases caused by smoking, as well as concomitant diseases in which smoking is considered an obligate risk factor. Thus, the likelihood of complications from arterial hypertension is significantly reduced by quitting smoking. Just a few months after quitting smoking, work of cardio-vascular system improves significantly. After quitting smoking, you can speed up your health recovery by following proper nutrition by regularly engaging in physical activity, especially daily physical activity without age restrictions, including daily walking. When selecting therapy for lung and heart diseases in a smoker, you should pay attention to recommendations for therapeutic exercises, lifestyle, nutrition.
At the same time, when you quit smoking, within six months to a year, lung volume increases by 10%, cough and other problems (reversible) associated with breathing disappear.
- Avoid allergens and substances harmful to the respiratory system. These include dust, chemical fumes, acrid smoke (including cigarette smoke), pollen and other allergens, smog, and substances found in hazardous industries. You should regularly do wet cleaning, improve the health of your home environment, giving up down pillows and blankets, if possible, reduce the use of cleaning products and use them carefully, promptly prevent harmful influences in the workplace, especially if the profession is associated with hazardous industries.
- Strengthening the immune system. Regular exercise provides good results for the prevention of pulmonary diseases. Daily walking (including Scandinavian walking), walks before bed, and daily exercise are very useful. When choosing physical exercises, you should always consult your doctor. Constantly being in a confined space, especially poorly ventilated, decorated synthetic materials equipped with air conditioning or heating, weakens the respiratory system over time. Therefore, to prevent diseases, it is useful to walk in the fresh air more often, get out of the city, and be in nature. Healthy image life, restorative physical exercise, the simplest morning work-out significantly improve immunity, increase resistance to colds.
- Do not self-medicate. Uncontrolled reception medicines leads to a cough, allergic reactions, shortness of breath. Elderly people experience increased sensitivity to drugs, caused by a deficiency of enzyme systems that take part in their neutralization. Therefore, self-medication should be strictly avoided. Here, the prevention of pulmonary diseases consists of strict adherence to the recommendations of the attending physician, as well as the specified regimen of taking medications.
- Weight control. If you are overweight, you should follow a healthy diet, eat right and adhere to a regime of mandatory physical activity. Even with a decrease in body weight by 10% of the original, breathing becomes easier and shortness of breath decreases. The diet should be balanced, including everything essential microelements and vitamins. Particular attention should be paid to the presence in the diet of such useful elements, like vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, flavonoids, magnesium, selenium and omega-3 fatty acids.
Air is called a mixture natural gases- nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, water and hydrogen. It is the primary source of energy for all organisms and the key to healthy growth and long life. Thanks to air, the process of metabolism and development occurs in organisms.
Air in the life of plants and animals
Air plays a huge role in plant life. The fundamental components necessary for the growth and life of plants are oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor and soil air. Oxygen is necessary for respiration, and carbon dioxide is necessary for carbon nutrition.
Oxygen is vital for all living things. Plants cannot germinate without oxygenation. The roots, leaves, and stems of plants need this element.
Carbon dioxide enters the plant by entering through its stomata into the leaf environment, entering the cells. The higher the concentration of carbon dioxide, the better plant life becomes.
Air contributes to the implementation of microbiological processes occurring in the soil. Thanks to these processes, elements necessary for the nutrition, growth and life of plants are formed in the soil - nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and others.
Air also plays a special role in the formation of mechanical tissues in land plants. It serves as their environment, protecting them from exposure to ultraviolet rays.
Air movement is important for favorable growth plants. Horizontal air movement dries out plants. And the vertical promotes the spread of fingers, seeds, and also regulates the thermal regime in different areas.
Animals, like plants, need air. Age, gender, size and physical activity are directly related to the amount of air consumed.
Animals' bodies are very sensitive to lack of oxygen. Due to the reduced oxygen concentration in animals, consumed proteins, fats and carbohydrates stop oxidizing. This leads to the accumulation of harmful toxic substances in the body.
Oxygen is necessary to saturate the blood and tissues of a living creature. Therefore, when there is a lack of this element in animals, breathing quickens, blood flow accelerates, oxidative processes in the body decrease, and the animal becomes restless. Prolonged lack of oxygen saturation causes: muscle fatigue, lack of pain factor, decreased body temperature and death.
Air in human life
Air is a vital factor for humans. It is carried by the blood throughout the body, saturating every organ and every cell of the body.
It is in the air that heat exchange between the human body and the environment occurs. The essence of this exchange is the convection transfer of heat and evaporation of moisture from the human lungs.
Air also performs a protective function for the body: it dilutes chemical pollutants to a safe concentration. This helps reduce the risk of poisoning the body with chemicals.
With the help of breathing, a person saturates the body with energy. Atmospheric air consists of many elements, but its composition can change. The reason for this is human production and technogenic activity.
During exhalation, a person returns a quarter less of the inhaled oxygen and a hundred times more carbon dioxide. A person needs to inhale 13-14 m3 of air daily. The oxygen content in the body of a healthy person remains virtually unchanged. But if this element is missing, then malfunctions occur in the body, the pulse quickens.
Carbon dioxide is also important for the body, but in certain quantities. An increase in gas concentration causes headache or tinnitus.
Oxygen helps rid the human body of carbon dioxide, which contains accumulated poisons and toxins. If a person rarely goes out into fresh air, breathes shallowly, or the air contains a low concentration of oxygen, human body suffers poisoning, leading to various diseases.
Atmosphere pollution
There is a world great amount air pollutants. These substances are produced both by man and by nature itself. Sources of air pollution are: thermal power plants and heating plants, motor transport, non-ferrous and ferrous metallurgy, chemical production and others.
Human activity contributes to the release of ash, soot, and dust. Mineral acids and organic solvents also enter the atmosphere.
Natural disasters also release various substances into the atmosphere. During volcanic eruptions, dust storms and forest fires, dust, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen and carbon oxides are released.
The basis of human life is air. Health effects fresh air undeniable. Movement, humidity and air temperature are important for normal life. The combination of these parameters provides health benefits.
What are the benefits of air
Effect of fresh air on the body appears in a complex:
- strengthening memory;
- improving the functioning of body systems;
- getting rid of absent-mindedness and depression;
- normalization of blood vessels, gastrointestinal tract, lungs and heart;
- cure some diseases;
- increase in life expectancy.
The most convenient, effective and in an accessible way To saturate the body with oxygen are daily walks. Of course, it is better if they take place in parks or forests. In any case, they will help you fill up with energy, restore vitality and become cheerful.
The effect of fresh air on health is invaluable, especially for children and the elderly, as well as for those who live in big cities. Nervous breakdowns, chronic fatigue, overwork and irritability - all will disappear if you breathe in fresh air.
How to ensure sufficient oxygen supply
Knowing that the effect of fresh air on health is important and necessary for a person, you can provide yourself with it in the following ways:
- Walk in clean and fresh air as often as possible. You can travel outside the city because there is less dirt, gases and emissions.
- Monitor air quality. It is necessary to ventilate the room more often and use different devices for ventilation and air purification.
- Dilute indoor flowers because they release oxygen and absorb harmful carbon dioxide. However, you need to choose plants carefully, as some can cause allergies.
The positive effect of fresh air on the human body makes it possible to significantly improve the quality of life. By taking care of your health and creating favorable conditions for life, ensuring yourself a sufficient supply of oxygen at home and at work, you will feel vigorous and healthy.
How does indoor air affect health?
How does city air affect health?
The ones that need oxygen the most are:
In our difficult time of stress, heavy loads, and constantly deteriorating environmental conditions, the quality of the air we breathe is of particular importance. The quality of air and its effect on our health directly depends on the amount of oxygen in it. But it is constantly changing.
We will tell you about the state of the air in big cities, about the harmful substances that pollute it, about the effect of air on health and the human body on our website www.rasteniya-lecarstvennie.ru.
About 30% of urban residents have health problems, and one of the main reasons for this is air with low oxygen content. To determine the level of oxygen saturation in the blood, you need to measure it using special device– pulse oximeter.
People with lung disease simply need to have such a device in order to determine in time that they need medical help.
How does indoor air affect health?
As we have already said, the oxygen content in the air we breathe is constantly changing. For example, on sea coast its amount averages 21.9%. Oxygen volume big city is already 20.8%. And even less indoors, since the already insufficient amount of oxygen is reduced due to the breathing of people in the room.
Inside residential public premises even very small sources of pollution create high concentrations of it, since the volume of air there is small.
Modern man spends most of his time indoors. That's why I don't even a large number of toxic substances (for example, polluted air from the street, finishing polymer materials, incomplete combustion of household gas) can affect its health and performance.
In addition, an atmosphere with toxic substances affects a person, combined with other factors: air temperature, humidity, background radioactivity, etc. If hygiene standards are not observed, sanitary requirements(ventilation, wet cleaning, ionization, air conditioning) the internal environment of rooms where people are located can become hazardous to health.
Also chemical composition the air atmosphere of indoor spaces significantly depends on the quality of the surrounding atmospheric air. Dust, exhaust gases, toxic substances located outside penetrate into the room.
To protect yourself from this, you should use an air conditioning, ionization, and purification system to purify the atmosphere of enclosed spaces. Carry out more often wet cleaning, do not use cheap materials that are hazardous to health when finishing.
How does city air affect health?
Human health is greatly affected by the large amount of harmful substances in urban air. It contains a large amount carbon monoxide(CO) - up to 80%, which “provides” us with motor transport. This harmful substance is very insidious, odorless, colorless and very poisonous.
Carbon monoxide, entering the lungs, binds to hemoglobin in the blood, interferes with the supply of oxygen to tissues and organs, causing oxygen starvation, and weakens thought processes. Sometimes it can cause loss of consciousness, and with strong concentration, it can cause death.
In addition to carbon monoxide, city air contains approximately 15 other substances hazardous to health. Among them are acetaldehyde, benzene, cadmium, and nickel. The urban atmosphere also contains selenium, zinc, copper, lead, and styrene. High concentrations of formaldehyde, acrolein, xylene, and toluene. Their danger is such that the human body only accumulates these harmful substances, which is why their concentration increases. After some time, they already become dangerous to humans.
These harmful chemical substances are often responsible for the appearance of hypertension, coronary heart disease, renal failure. There is also a high concentration of harmful substances around industrial enterprises, plants, and factories. Studies have proven that half of the exacerbation chronic diseases people living near enterprises is caused by bad, dirty air.
Things are much better in rural areas, “dormitory urban areas”, where there are no nearby enterprises, power plants, and also a low concentration of vehicles.
Residents of large cities are saved by powerful air conditioners that clean the air masses of dust, dirt, and soot. But you should know that when passing through the filter, the cooling-heating system also cleanses the air of useful ions. Therefore, as an addition to the air conditioner, you should have an ionizer.
The ones that need oxygen the most are:
* Children, they need twice as much as adults.
* Pregnant women - they spend oxygen on themselves and on the unborn child.
* Elderly people and people with poor health. They need oxygen to improve their well-being and prevent exacerbation of diseases.
* Athletes need oxygen to enhance physical activity and accelerate muscle recovery after sports activities.
* For schoolchildren, students, everyone who studies mental labor to enhance concentration and reduce fatigue.
The influence of air on the human body is obvious. Favorable conditions air environment – most important factor maintaining human health and performance. Therefore, try to ensure best cleaning indoor air. Also, try to leave the city as soon as possible. Go to the forest, to a pond, walk in parks and squares.
Breathe the clean, healing air you need to maintain your health. Be healthy!
Svetlana, www.rasteniya-lecarstvennie.ru