Environmental Diseases - An Overview

Author: Anam Niazi

“A healthy ecology is the basis for a healthy economy”, thought provoking statement said by Claudinic Schneider. Environment is a wide term which literally means surrounding and everything that affects an organism during its lifetime but sometimes these surroundings leave desirable and undesirable effects on human health in different ways.

Environmental pollution is one of the major problems that the world is facing today and causing irreparable harm to the earth, mainly to the lives sustaining on earth. Basically environmental pollution is of two types, one is due to nature of law and problems arising due to environmental deterioration and second is because of violation of environmental laws by human beings through industries, smoke, deforestation etc.

Environmental pollution causes, directly or indirectly, serious damaging and lethal effects on human health and according to the World Health Organization, quarter of the diseases that the humanity is facing today are due to long term exposure to environmental pollutants.

Environmental diseases are the products of such human activities that harm the environment. Four basic types of pollution are air, water, land and noise pollution that are busy in affecting human health in their own ways.

Air pollution is by far the most harmful form of pollution and responsible for causing numerous health issues. According to the WHO, 7 million premature deaths are related to air pollution.  Asthma is another chronic and inflammatory disease of airways that is caused by it. National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) states that ground level ozone, sulfer dioxde, nitrogen oxide, and particulate materials trigger it.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is another respiratory disorder caused by air pollution. In this disease, air sacs and airways lose their shape and become distended or floppy that makes the airways narrowed. Chronic bronchitis (Long term inflammation of bronchial tubes) and emphysema (Irreversible damage of the tissues lining of air sacs) are its two types.

According to American Lung Association (ALA) Long term exposure to air pollution especially automobile exhausts boost risk for lower lung function and more susceptibility to lung cancer. Lung cancer is uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in one or both lungs that can develop into tumor and impaired lung function. It is caused due to the inhalation of potential carcinogenic chemicals and gases.

Water is a sign of life but when it gets contaminated with sewerage, gases, hazardous microbes it can be life threatening. One of the water related disease is Diarrhea.  According to the WHO, it causes 4% of all deaths and 5% health loss to disability. Its cause can be bacterial, viral and parasitic contamination with water. Cholera and dysentery are the severe forms of diarrhea in which severe dehydration and electrolyte depletion occurs in body. Shigellosis is water borne disease associated with bloody diarrhea.

Some other important water borne diseases are Malaria, Typhoid Fever, Ambiasis, Hepatitis A and Viral Gastroenteritis. Mild symptoms of drinking contaminated water are abdominal cramps, vomiting and redness of eyes, rashes when come in contact.

Soil/Land pollution is the presence of chemicals, harmful substances or pathogenic organism in natural soil environment. Diseases related to it are skin, stomach infections kidney, liver disorders, and cancer.

Most pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers contain benzene, chromium and other chemicals which are carcinogenic in nature so when the crops contaminated with these are ingested they decrease Red blood cells, white blood cells and antibodies and affect body’s immunity. Their toxicity or poisoning requires immediate hospitalization or medical treatment.

Noise pollution is simply the unwanted form of pollution, disturbing noise that may cause to increase the irritation or anger of an individual. Some of its effects are temporary or permanent deafness, hypertension (high BP), stress, sleep disturbances and color blindness.

We all are exposed to the severities of Environmental Pollution in many ways and now it’s up to us to decide whether we become subjects to slow poisoning to death or we fight against it and strive for a green, healthy and disease free environment.