Air pollution — personal data comparison
I have been collecting personal health data for about 4 years (2016–2019), driven to understand and navigate personal health challenges.
Suffering repeatedly from colds, a frail respiratory system, and cognitive impairment. Over the years that turned to chronic autoimmune diseases, cancerous cell activities, etc; but what was the root cause of this sudden development?
I [1] turned to epigenetics and functional medicine and investigated health down to the cellular level with Dr. Damien Downing, a pioneer of Ecological medicine — a systems approach to health. I am healthy now but thought to publish this document regardless.
Below are simply a few findings, this is by no means a scientific paper, rather an accumulation of thoughts based on curiosity about the correlation of my health and the environment I lived in.
- The pollution levels of the world’s major cities have always been under scrutiny, but never more so than now. With the increase in media coverage and new statistics the occupants of these cities are becoming more aware of the health implications, and some changing their behaviors.
- But it is still hard to piece all the available information together to determine what the true impacts are on your health based on exposure. As a result, we decided to delve into the data available and see if we could make sense of it, trying to make it firstly understandable, and then more contextual.
- There is increasing awareness and concern within the scientific and public communities that chemical pollutants can suppress immune processes and thus cause the increased development of neoplastic and infectious diseases.
– NCBI, Biologic Markers in Immunotoxicology.
The air you breath
The air is fundamental and essential for living beings but epidemiological studies provide evidence of the harmful impacts of air pollution by increased cardiopulmonary morbidity and mortality as well as reproductive disorders and cancers. [1,2]
Some air toxins are released from natural sources but most are originated from anthropogenic sources, such as road traffic, construction, industrial, and agricultural activities. [3] Among almost two hundred hazardous air pollutants — mainly corresponding to suspended particulate matter and gases — only six are monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which sets the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQSs) for air particles, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and lead.
In addition, some other air pollutants are subjected to specific attention because of their deleterious health impacts, like asbestos, mercury, chlorofluorocarbons, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. [4]
With experiments running parallel, I collected our personal data and mapped it with publicly accessible (even though hard to find) air pollution data.
Understanding toxicity
Chronic illness is associated with poor cell membrane health. Every cell in the body is encapsulated by a membrane composed of a double layer of phospholipids. As we get older and/or ill this phospholipid gets replaced with less beneficial phospholipids and this lipid layer can trap and store many toxins. These toxins can impact cell membrane and mitochondrial function as well as cellular communication. [Health Associates Medical Group]
Acumen toxicology — The Rabbit Hole
Finding the root cause for chronic illness feels very much like the journey down Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole and after going through a somewhat impressive amount of more or less generic blood tests and health checks, we turned to the Acumen Study. [acumenlab.co.uk]
Here, mitochondria numbers are assessed and any mitochondrial clumping is reported, which is mainly the result of increases in calcium or toxic metals on actin fibrils.
This cutting-edge (and therefore not strictly evidence-based) set of tests looks at key sites within cells, identifies toxins there if any, and assesses the consequent damage. It is only semiquantitative.
The main tests are:
• DNA Adducts; identifies and locates chemicals attached to specific genes, which can block or alter gene expression (epigenetic effects) and therefore protein/enzyme functions.
• Mitochondrial Translocator protein; identifies chemicals attached to this energy-producing “batteries” within every cell, which can compromise ATP production and therefore cell function.
• Cardiolipin; functional assessment of this crucial molecule in the inner mitochondrial wall, which is vital to energy production.
• SOD; Superoxide dismutase is a very important antioxidant enzyme.
• Glutathione and Glutathione-S-transferase Profile; GST is the single most important Phase 2 hepatic detox enzyme. The panel looks at the induction (switching on) of the Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) enzyme by toxic exposures.
Personal data: 6 markers of direct toxification have been found.
Phosphatidylcholine Therapy — personal results
To combat this, we experimented with high-dose Vitamin C, Phosphatidylcholine (PC), and Glutathione infusions, to restore health. Phosphatidylcholine gets incorporated into the cell membrane and improves its integrity and serves to improve the transport of nutrients and export toxins across the cell membrane. Glutathione protects cells from free radical damage and helps improve cellular function at all levels.
The results have been impressive. From 6 adducts found in September 2016, I went down to 0 by June 2017
In my experience, having infusions 1–8 times a month is less than ideal, it is also not great to wait until this therapy is necessary, and on top of it, this is incredibly expensive with approximately £400 per infusion.
Leaving London in January 2017 for the majority of the time, and living between Los Angeles and Tirol, Austria, my personal health increased, although working full time and not having any further infusions.
Air pollution data
I started looking into how and where to get the air pollution data from the places I lived in: London, Kufstein (Tirol, Austria), and Los Angeles.
I got in touch with the Federal Environment Agency of Tirol, Austria for air pollution data from my birth town Kufstein, Austria; a small town nestled in the middle of the Austrian Alps. Via the London Data Store website.
London Air is a partnership between the King’s College London and the local authorities of London. It has data from a number of pollution sensors around London, giving live updates every hour, and can be accessed using its own series of open APIs. Brilliant — this allowed me to access data from London Hackney’s measure point from 2016 to 2019.
And finally, I pieced together air pollution data from LA via Air Now and the Aqicn World Map.
The London Data Store proved more useful and provided a much broader data set covering N02, PM10, and PM2.5 levels. These represent the pollutants a commuter would be exposed to, produced by heavy industry and vehicles, namely diesel engines.
One finding has been that it does look like the NO2 pollution is the biggest differentiator in the air pollution mapping of all 3 places. I layered those findings over — admittedly subjective — personal level of wellbeing and health. Something I pieced together with the dates of infusions, doctor visits, and spikes in Uber trips, which always have been the go-to when public transport has not been possible due to exhaustion, and therefore a reliable indicator for bad health.
Looking at new cell membrane tests, it looked like it had been compromised again.
Findings and Conclusions
- Extremely labor-intensive
- Data is only updated every hour
- A limited number of pollution sensors beyond the center
- Hard to interpret the score
- Sensors have lots of missing data
- The search for toxins in the body is very costly
- Accessibility is almost impossible. Where do I look when I don’t even know what for?
- How can data from different sources be mapped, and made useful to the user
- How can environmental and health data become understandable
- Basically, how can we make this useful?
- How can we collect personal health data in a comfortable, casual, safe, affordable way; then translate it to useful information bites, and map it to actual life pollution data from inside the home, the commute, and the workplace. And then again give useful and very personalized timestamp bite-sized tips to the individual user.
For example: “Today pollution levels are exceeding X and there is an increase in flu cases in your area, wear a pollution mask on your commute. Also, the zinc levels have been low today, take X dose today.”
At the present time, air pollution is considered a major inducer of harmful health effects. [Health and Cellular Impacts of Air Pollutants: From Cytoprotection to Cytotoxicity, 09 Apr 2012]
Although it was possible to synthesize these large and complex data sets down to the hours of pollution exposure, I was still left with an uncertainty of what action to take. I still found it difficult to answer the question we had started with. Should I still be wearing a mask when commuting through London?
What do 6 hours really mount up to and how dangerous is this? How long is justifiable?
In conclusion, I can’t say that a greater understanding of the data here actually helps people make a decision. But a new and perhaps more valuable insight emerged: The mapping of the data visually, both initially to help us better understand its makeup.
I started using the Plume Labs app and sensor, to learn how my route varies, and how much the time of the day, and weather matter. This helped me to make a decision to take a cleaner route to and from work — around the busy streets of London.
I realized how complex it is to understand the toxin levels of the body and would love the possibility of measuring key toxin levels every morning, by using an everyday device such as my toothbrush.
I have seen the potential to create products and service offers that are a functioning ecosystem, combining the home, the body, and the living space.
I am curious to see how personal data can be captured and held privately. And how this data can be combined with public data, to help the individual live their best and healthiest lives.
[1] C. A. Pope III, R. T. Burnett, M. J. Thun, et al., “Lung cancer, cardiopulmonary mortality, and long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution,”, vol. 287, no. 9, pp. 1132–1141, 2002.View at: Google Scholar, JAMA
[2] J. Lewtas, “Air pollution combustion emissions: characterization of causative agents and mechanisms associated with cancer, reproductive, and cardiovascular effects,”, vol. 636, no. 1–3, pp. 95–133, 2007.View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar, Mutation Research
[3] P. Borm and K. K. Donaldson, “An Introduction to Particle Toxicology; from coal mining to nanotechnology,” in, P. Borm and K. K. Donaldson, Eds., pp. 1–12, CRC Press, 2007.View at: Google Scholar, Particle Toxicology
[4] B. Ostro et al., Environ Health Perspect, Barcelona, Spain, 2011. The Effects of Particulate Matter Sources on Daily Mortality: A Case-Crossover Study of Barcelona
