Last December, Beijing declared a red alert for pollution for three days. It was an unprecedented but justified measure: the concentration of small harmful particles had reached 666 micrograms per cubic meter the previous week. Or what is the same, 26 times more than the maximum levels recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Heating systems, which run on coal, and the geographic location of the Chinese megalopolis, enclosed between mountains, contribute to aggravate the situation.
The air that Beijing people breathe is therefore a kind of toxic vapor with serious health effects : according to the WHO, air pollution causes respiratory infections, cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer, and is the direct culprit of 1, 3 million deaths a year worldwide. But there is still more.
As explained in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology , a group of researchers has observed that rodents exposed to Beijing’s “bad fumes” for three to eight weeks were noticeably fatter than the rest. Specifically, the “gassed” females gained 10% more weight than the congeners that breathed clean air, while the males subjected to pollution gained no less than 18% more. Experts attribute it to metabolic changes and inflammatory processes triggered by harmful particles in suspension.
On the other hand, this finding could help explain the high rate of obesity in today’s Chinese society, a problem that affects 11% of the population between 20 and 39 years of age.
