Spikes in air pollution trigger hundreds more heart attacks

King's College London has claimed that sudden spikes in air pollution trigger hundreds more heart attacks, strokes and acute asthma attacks in the UK.

Analysing data from London, Birmingham, Bristol, Derby, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford and Southampton, the research found that days when pollutant levels were in the top half of the annual range saw an extra 124 cardiac arrests on average.

Deemed as further evidence of ‘a health emergency’, the figure, based on ambulance call data and not counting heart attacks suffered by patients already in hospital, highlights significant short-term health risks caused by air pollution, on top of contributing to almost 500,000 premature deaths in Europe every year.

Across the nine cities on days with high pollution levels there was an average of 231 additional hospital admissions for stroke, with an extra 193 children and adults taken to hospital for asthma treatment.

Regionally, in London, high-pollution days caused an extra 87 cardiac arrests on average, an extra 144 strokes, and 74 children and 33 adults ending up in hospital with asthma-related issues. Birmingham saw 12 more out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, 27 additional admissions for stroke and 26 more for asthma.

Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford and Southampton saw between two and six more out-of-hospital heart attacks and up to 14 extra hospital admissions for both stroke and asthma on high-pollution days. Only in Derby was there no apparent increase.

The King's College research also suggests cutting air pollution by a fifth would decrease incidents of lung cancer by between five per cent and seven per cent across the nine cities surveyed.