exercise can make your health worse

A large-scale study published in theEuropean Heart Journal, a medical journal of cardiology, involving nearly 1.5 million people, highlighted an unexpected fact: increasingly intense air pollution can harm and even worsen the health of people who exercise outdoors.

According to Dr. Seong Rae Kim, lead author of the study, the risk of cardiovascular disease like strokes and heart attacks increases in young adults when they perform physical activities in places with high concentrations of pollutants.

With high levels of exposure to air pollution, increasing physical activity to levels above recommended levels can affect cardiovascular health – Dr Seong Rae Kim at Science Daily.

This means that excessive physical activity may not be beneficial for cardiovascular health, especially in large urban centers.. If the air quality in large cities continues to deteriorate, there will be an increase in the incidence of cardiovascular disease, even among healthy people who engage in physical activity.

However, when pollution is removed from the equation, the effects of physical activity are still largely beneficial. Among the patients followed, those who were not exposed to much pollution and increased levels of physical activity in their daily life had a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

Although the study does not prove that pollution is the direct cause of illnesses, there is no doubt that there is a relationship between them. Dr Seong explains that ultimately it is imperative that air pollution be reduced globally to avoid an increase in health problems.

How was the study conducted?

Science still doesn’t know much about the pros and cons of exercise and air pollution, as previous studies have been very limited.. This is the first time that researchers have followed people aged 20 to 39 over a period of several years, in addition to analyzing the effects of increasing and decreasing physical activity on the body.

The study was conducted at Seoul National University School of Medicine, South Korea, and involved 1,469,972 young Koreans who lived in urban areas and were accompanied by scientists between January 2013 and December 2018. At each health check-up, the participants filled out a questionnaire on the physical activity practiced.

The researchers adjusted their results to take into account factors that could affect each participant’s performance., such as age, sex, family income, body mass index, smoking and even alcohol consumption. Data from the National Environmental Air Monitoring System were used to calculate the average pollution levels to which participants were exposed.