Are You A Victim of This?

Out of nowhere a headache starts, or your breathing starts to labor.  You can't think of any reason. Then maybe you smell something: a cigarette!  Maybe even outside.   You look around and sure enough, the perpetrator is nearby,  You are a victim of...

Personal Pollution!

That insidious attack on your health because someone has the right to light up where they happen to be.  They have the right to indulge their unhealthy addiction at the expense of your health.  Let's put that in perspective....

Me in my home office when the downstairs neighbors light up!

18% More People Die From 2nd Hand Smoke Than Guns

NO! THIS IS NOT A JUSTIFICATION FOR GUNS. It just demonstrates the insidious problem of second hand smoke!  According to Lung Association statistics and the  CDC 45,725 people die yearly from second hand smoke while 38,551 die from gunshot wounds,   Oddly most of the victims of second hand smoke die of heat failure, not lung cancer.  7,330 deaths vs 33,950 deaths respectively.  Or....

Maybe You're a Perpetrator

Next time you light up, look around.  Are there any people near by.  Even if you are outside, there is a good chance there is.  Are any of them kids? In children, secondhand smoke causes the following:

• Ear infections
• More frequent and severe asthma attacks
• Respiratory symptoms (for example, coughing, sneezing, and shortness of breath)
• Respiratory infections (bronchitis and pneumonia)
• A greater risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

Just saying.

Maybe It's Happening To You, Too?

AQI Effects Me.  Why Not You Too?

When I first was diagnosed with high blood it was intermittent?  Intermittent?  

WTF?  Weird

Either you have blood pressure (the silent killer) or you don't!  Right?  Not sometimes?   HPB doesn't come and go.  I'd go to a screening at work and it would be high.  I'd go to the doctor and it would be low like it has been all my life.   All my indicators (cholesterol, diet, exercise, sleep, etc..) were good. The doctor and I passed it off as job stress.  It wasn't.

Air Quality is the culprit.

My  intermittent HPB returned this year (18 years later) and being an ex-data analyst, I tracked when it happened.  It happened only when and every time the air quality is bad.  So I verified my suspicions with various medical schools and found these environmental factors raise blood pressure

• Pollution.  Most of which comes from cars. (see chart)
• Ozone. Again the primary source of ground layer ozone is cars
• Second hand smoke:  Other people's cigarettes

As it turns out my high blood pressure 18 years ago, wasn't stress.  I worked in building built over diesel locomotives as they idled their engines to keep them warm for the evening commute.  All the exhaust filtered up through the building.  

How about you?

Have you ever felt these symptoms on an intermittent, but regular bases?  Maybe when you are outside or around smokers?

• Headache
• Fatigue
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Shortness of breath
• Restlessness
• Blurred vision

Or perhaps you are a culprit?  Which means you can do something about your own or someone else's problem