Tuesday, March 26

Sedentary lifestyle is more harmful than smoke and exhaust noise


The benefits of the big drop in pollution during the 2020 lockdown failed to offset the ills of the crash in fitness

Alfonso Torres

That not practicing exercise takes its toll or that breathing and enjoying the purity and tranquility of the mountain is good are certainties that for most do not require any proof. It is an indisputable fact, demonstrated by scientists and health professionals, that a sedentary lifestyle and air and noise pollution are risk factors and precursors of serious illnesses, both physical and mental.

But, taken to the limit, what is worse for our health, one risk factor or the other? The answer to this question is one of those provided by research recently published in the scientific journal ‘Environmental Pollution’ by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a health research node promoted by the La Caixa Foundation.

A team led by Sarah Koch took advantage of the unprecedented situation of the 2020 European lockdown to investigate how emergency situations affect health. To do this, they took three references: Barcelona, ​​with a “strict” confinement; Vienna, with an intermediate and flexible confinement; and Stockholm, with the most “lax” measures on the continent, based on voluntariness and individual responsibility. They selected three variables: the level of physical activity and the rates of nitrogen dioxide (NO2, the main atmospheric toxin) and environmental noise. And, finally, they calculated before, during and after the running of the bulls the evolution in each city of four diseases closely linked, for better or worse, to these three risk factors: heart attack, stroke, depression and anxiety.

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Physical activity fell by 95% in confinement, which means 10% more heart attacks and strokes, an extra 12% anxiety symptoms and an additional 8% depression

Months of study later, they had two general certainties. The first, that the stricter and longer the confinement, the stronger the decrease in the variables studied (activity and pollution). And the second, more surprising, that the damage to health caused by an extreme sedentary lifestyle is greater than that caused to our body by smoke and noise from exhaust pipes and traffic. “Despite the differences observed in the three cities, there is a pattern that is repeated. The health benefits that would derive from the improvement in air and noise quality – achieved in the three capitals – would not be able to compensate for the profoundly negative effects of the drop in physical activity levels”, details Sarah Koch.

In other words, sedentary lifestyle is the variable that most negatively impacts health of the three studied. It was seen in Barcelona, ​​where in the months of confinement a 95% drop in the average physical activity of its neighbors was detected. If this rate close to zero had lasted a year, heart attacks and strokes would have increased by 10%, anxiety symptoms by 12% and depression by 8%. The drop to half the rate of NO2 in the air – unrepeatable until the electric car triumphs – and a reduction in ambient noise by no less than five decibels, something difficult to repeat, could only offset the increase in new patients that would have caused a year of such inactivity. Something very similar happened in Stockholm, where a 42% decline in physical activity gobbled up the salutary benefits of a two-decibel drop in noise and 9% air toxins.

The risks of traffic

But it is that in Vienna, despite its soft confinement, the drop in physical activity reached 76%. This data, accompanied by a significant reduction in pollution, but more moderate than in Barcelona – 22% less NO2 and a drop of one decibel – triggered illnesses. The proliferation of sedentary lifestyle meant that, even discounting the benefits of a much less toxic and less noisy air, the number of seriously ill patients rose ten points. The worst balance of the three models.

In addition to the obvious perverse influence of a sedentary life, what is also clear from the data from Barcelona is the enormous health benefit of minimizing pollution and noise from traffic. The unprecedented decrease registered in both parameters would have reduced heart attack and stroke diagnoses by 5% and 6% and depression by 11% if the confinement had lasted one year.

One piece of evidence and the other lead Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, another expert on the team, to conclude that “the results show the benefits that would be obtained if urban planning policies were applied that significantly reduce air and noise pollution and, at the same time, encourage physical activity and contact with green spaces.


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