The Guardian reports that exposure to air pollution in the first year of life reduces lung function development.
“This is worrying because it suggests that damage to lungs in the first year of life can affect respiratory health throughout life,” said Dr Qi Zhao of the IUF-Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine in Düsseldorf, whose work was presented at the international congress of the European Respiratory Society.
The study included 915 children living in the Munich and Wesel regions of Germany. The children had tests to measure their breathing power at the ages of six, 10 and 15.
