Air pollution causes 30 per cent premature deaths in India: report

The CSE report, “Body Burden: Lifestyle Diseases”, estimated that India had 22.2 million chronic COPD patients and around 35 million chronic asthma patients in 2016

New Delhi: Air pollution causes 30 per cent premature deaths in the country, a report released on Monday by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has revealed.

A state-level disease burden report released last week had found that household air pollution is responsible for 5 per cent of the total disease burden and outdoor air pollution for 6 per cent.

The CSE report, “Body Burden: Lifestyle Diseases”, estimated that India had 22.2 million chronic COPD patients and around 35 million chronic asthma patients in 2016. It identified, among the fallouts of environmental pollution, mental health diseases.

“Lack of social support, changing diets and economic instability are the main triggers of mental disorders. Increased intake of sugar too has been linked to mental illness, making it imperative to find ways of reducing intake. An increase of PM 2.5 in the environment by 4.34 microgram/cubic metre can increase the risk of Alzheimer’s,” the report says.

It found that over 61 per cent of all deaths in India were attributed to lifestyle or non-communicable diseases (NCDs). According to the WHO, there are four major risk factors for NCDs — alcohol, tobacco, poor diet intake and lack of physical activity — and by investing just $1-3 per person per year, countries can dramatically reduce illness and death from NCDs

Sunita Narain, director general of CSE, said: “We believe the cost is going to be much higher considering that risk factors (in India) are many more than the four identified by the global body.”

Source: The Indian Express

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