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Emissions from residential cooking and heating, power generation, and industries together contribute up to 60 per cent of India's PM2.5 pollution, with about 80 per cent of this coming from <keyword id="23824528" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="fossil-fuel-combustion" source="keywords">fossil fuel combustion</keyword>, a new study has found. The peer-reviewed study, published in MDPI's "Air" journal, suggests dividing India into 15 airsheds based on regional climate and pollution sources. An airshed is a geographic area where <keyword id="53848" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="air-quality" source="Orion">air quality</keyword> is influenced by common factors such as wind patterns and pollution sources. Since pollution can spread across regions, the <keyword id="22077484" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="airshed-approach" source="keywords">airshed approach</keyword> promotes coordinated action among states. "Residential cooking and heating, power generation, and all other industries together are responsible for 40-60 per cent of the PM2.5 pollution in all the airsheds, and approximately 80 per cent of the pollution comes from fossil fuel burning sources," said Sarath Guttikunda, lead author of the study and founder of UrbanEmissions.info. The study said biomass burning, including post-harvest crop residue burning, contributed less than 3 per cent to annual PM2.5 levels while transport accounted for 5-10 per cent in all airsheds. PM2.5 are fine particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less, about the width of a human hair. These are so small that these can penetrate deep into the lungs and even enter the bloodstream, posing significant health risks. An analysis of PM2.5 trends from 1998 to 2020, along with state-level data on fuel consumption, energy demand and emissions, revealed that 11 of the 15 airsheds were critical for India's air quality management and required coordinated interventions. The Indo-Gangetic Plains remain the most polluted region, with significant emissions from residential cooking and heating (especially in winter), power plants, brick kilns (driven by construction demand), waste burning, dust and vehicular movement for passengers and freight. The plateau region between the Eastern and Western Ghats, India's second most populated area, has seen the highest rise in annual PM2.5 pollution during this period, the study said. "This is an indication of the growing urbanisation and demand for transport, industrial, and commercial amenities," it said. Coastal areas, vital to India's industrial economy, have also experienced rising pollution despite the moderating effects of land-sea breezes. This increase is attributed to growing shipping emissions and overall industrial growth in cities such as Mundra, Surat, Mumbai, Goa, Mangalore, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Haldia.

Study traces 60% PM2.5 pollution in India to residential cooking, power generation, industries

<keyword id="22976106" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="indoor" source="keywords">Indoor</keyword> <keyword id="19900550" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="air-pollution" source="keywords">air pollution</keyword> is a bigger <keyword id="21117961" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="health-risk" source="keywords">health risk</keyword> than <keyword id="20543591" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="outdoor" source="keywords">outdoor</keyword> air pollution in India, and sometimes cities are cleaner than nearby villages where <keyword id="22976772" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="household-pollution" source="keywords">household pollution</keyword> is higher, according to the country's two top policy experts. Addressing the India <keyword id="20445293" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="clean-air" source="keywords">Clean Air</keyword> Summit (ICAS) 2024, Principal Advisor, <keyword id="19904190" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ministry-of-Health-and-Family-Welfare" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Ministry of Health and Family Welfare" meta.hostid="83" meta.entityid="Ministry of Health and Family Welfare">Ministry of Health and Family Welfare</keyword>, Soumya Swaminathan said, "Studies done in Delhi have shown that women's average exposure to high levels of <keyword id="20827287" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="black-carbon" source="keywords">black carbon</keyword> (women <keyword id="19895006" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="WHO" source="keywords">who</keyword> are mostly at home) is as much as auto-rickshaw passengers going around outdoor exposed to the ambient air pollution in Delhi, resulting in high systolic blood pressure." "Cities contribute less than 20 per cent to the overall state emissions, wherever they have been assessed, but household emissions predominate, ranging between 20 per cent and 40 per cent. Across the country, we are seeing is that sometimes cities are cleaner than the surrounding villages where household air pollution predominates," she said at the summit organised by think-tank Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy. This builds a strong case for expanding the scope of India's National Clean Air Programme (<keyword id="20133150" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="NCAP" source="keywords">NCAP</keyword>), which currently focuses on non-attainment cities. Air pollution is a major threat to public health and contributes to a significant amount of morbidity as well as mortality. Apart from PM2.5 and PM10, short-lived climate pollutants such as black carbon, methane, ozone, and hydrocarbons have the potential to harm the environment and warm the atmosphere even more than CO2. Black carbon can cause chronic respiratory illnesses, lung cancer, emphysema, pneumonia, asthma, heart disease, and low birthweight. "In terms of reducing our life expectancy, globally, PM2.5 is contributing to about 2.3 years of life lost. Just below that is tobacco. In fact, there's so much attention on tobacco and global frameworks for control, but not the same level of attention has been paid to PM2.5 and certainly not the same level of commitments," Swaminathan said. The impact of air pollution is not limited to public health but has a significant economic cost as well. Recently, the World Bank published a study highlighting that air pollution has resulted in a loss of around USD 8.1 trillion in 2019, which is 6.1 per cent of the global gross domestic product (GDP). "We are always talking about air pollution as a problem but studies also show a strong economic case for action on clean air. There are significant positive consequences to investing in cleaning up the air in terms of the return on investments. We know air pollution is not just bad for our health, but it's also bad for agriculture, because it reduces the sunlight that's reaching the crops and it's bad for our economy or any country's economy as it deters people from coming and living or visiting those places," Swaminathan added. Kalpana Balakrishnan, Director, WHO Collaborating Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, said that the main barrier to shifting to clean cooking fuels that can help reduce household air pollution levels is finance. "If we give free LPG to women for two years, they are unlikely to shift back to biomass cooking even if you remove the subsidies," she said. Through Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) launched in May 2016, more than 100 million households in India received LPG cylinders by the end of March 2023. Studies shows over 50 per cent of the households that received new LPG cylinders under PMUY did not choose to refill it even once. Around a third of the world's population - 2.4 billion people globally (including 500 million people in India) - still lack access to clean cooking solutions. Although the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MOPNG) claims that the country's household LPG "coverage" stands at 99.8 per cent, the National Family Health Survey conducted in 2019-21 (NFHS-5) shows that 41 per cent of the population still cooks on biomass.

Indoor air pollution poses greater health risk than outdoor: Experts

Women with hormonal condition <keyword id="20290460" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="PCOS" source="keywords">PCOS</keyword> could be at about 50% more risk of developing <keyword id="20066093" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="eating-disorders" source="keywords">eating disorders</keyword>, including bingeing, according to a new study. Affecting roughly one in eight to 10 women in their reproductive ages globally, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is marked by higher-than-usual testosterone levels and related symptoms, including irregular menstrual cycles and excess body hair. The analysis is the first to confirm "an increased risk of specific eating disorders, including <keyword id="22729705" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="bulimia" source="keywords">bulimia</keyword> nervosa, commonly called bulimia, and binge eating disorder" among women affected by the hormonal condition, according to first author Laura Cooney, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, US. Bulimia is marked by episodes of binge-eating, followed by resorting to means to avoid weight gain, which can include induced vomiting, excessive exercising or fasting. Women having PCOS are known to be at a higher risk of experiencing <keyword id="19946458" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="metabolic-disorders" source="keywords">metabolic disorders</keyword>, such as diabetes, and <keyword id="22729706" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="reproductive-issues" source="keywords">reproductive issues</keyword>, including infertility. "Many women with PCOS experience weight stigma, and that can be detrimental to mental health generally, and contribute to disordered eating," Cooney said. For the study, published in The <keyword id="22729707" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="journal-of-clinical-endocrinology-and-metabolism" source="keywords">Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism</keyword>, the authors looked at results from 20 cross-sectional studies across nine countries. Data from close to 29,000 women with PCOS and over 2.5 lakh women not having the condition were included in the analysis. "Individuals with PCOS had higher odds of any eating disorder, which persisted in studies where PCOS was diagnosed by Rotterdam criteria," the authors wrote. According to the Rotterdam criteria, women are diagnosed with PCOS when they have two of these three key features -- increased numbers of ovarian follicles containing immature eggs (called polycystic ovaries) seen on ultrasound, slightly higher levels of testosterone or related symptoms like excess body hair, and irregular or no menstrual periods. Looking at the body mass indices (<keyword id="20014829" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="BMI" source="keywords">BMI</keyword>) of women, the researchers found that both women with normal and those having a higher weight had a higher risk of disordered eating, suggesting that the risk of developing eating disorders did not depend on BMI. "Our findings emphasise the importance of screening women with PCOS for eating disorders before clinicians share any lifestyle advice," Cooney said. "The lifestyle modifications we often recommend for women with PCOS -- including physical activity, healthy diet and behaviour modifications -- could hinder the recovery process for eating disorders. Health care providers need to be vigilant about screening for eating disorders in this population," Cooney said.

Women with PCOS at higher risk developing disordered eating, study finds

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Standing-desk companies are expected to steadily increase their revenue over the next decade.</li><li>A study suggests they may not help reduce the risk of cardiovascular issues like heart disease.</li></ul>A few months into the pandemic, my husband bought us a convertible <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/home/best-standing-desk">standing desk</a>. We were both working from home, and aside from our daily jogs together, we were slouching in our respective work corners for hours.Suddenly, more and more of my coworkers were towering in their Zoom calls. We made small talk about how our new standing desks helped with our posture and prevented us from <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/i-tried-being-more-active-at-work-was-less-productive-2024-8">sitting all day</a>.The trend hasn't died down. The market-research firm Global Market Insights estimated that the standing-desk market was valued at $7.8 billion in 2023 and could increase by 5.5% annually over the next decade. Top retailers like Autonomous, FlexiSpot, and Uplift generate millions of dollars in revenue each year. In its branding materials, Autonomous suggests that "by promoting movement, these desks help you stay active and prevent pain."But after a while, instead of hitting the button to elevate my desk, I found myself sitting all day after my morning workout. While some of my colleagues <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-things-that-happened-after-i-stood-for-3-hours-a-day">felt more energized standing at their desks</a> for three hours, I did not.A <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/53/6/dyae136/7822310">study</a> published on Thursday confronted my conundrum. Ultimately, it suggests that if you're using a standing desk to feel more active and boost your health, the trick is to actually use it to move more, frequently standing and sitting.Using data from more than 80,000 adults in the UK, the researchers found that simply standing didn't necessarily help get people's blood circulating. They also suggest that standing all day — without moving around — may increase the risk of circulatory issues.<h2 id="25df6fac-c6ed-45a7-ab87-bff83d4930d0">Sitting or standing for over 2 hours may not be good for health</h2>The team, led by researchers at the University of Sydney, studied data on 83,013 adults in the UK Biobank, a large database with information about people's genetics, lifestyle, and health. The participants wore accelerometer devices on their wrists to track their movements for one week.The authors concluded that sitting for 10 to 12 hours a day was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular and orthostatic circulatory disease, such as varicose veins.Standing for two hours a day wasn't associated with a reduced risk of cardiac conditions like heart failure, stroke, or heart disease — it didn't seem to have much of an effect on cardiovascular health.The study did find that standing for two hours straight was associated with a higher risk of orthostatic circulatory disease, increasing by 11% every additional 30 minutes. The authors suggested that standing for too long every day could lead to long-term issues with blood circulation, such as venous ulcers and swollen veins.<h2 id="9b8e299b-9168-4df9-be6f-5275cf2ba174">It's best to move throughout the day</h2>Desks that let you switch between standing and sitting, such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/home/best-standing-desk-converter">standing-desk converters</a>, can help you change up how you work without committing to one position all day. Home-office upgrades such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/fitness/best-under-desk-treadmills">under-desk treadmills</a> can also make it easier to squeeze in movement throughout the day.Other researchers have recommended <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/daily-exercise-prevent-death-sitting-all-day-2023-10">walking for 22 minutes a day</a>, which can be incorporated into doing household chores or taking the stairs, to help offset the health risks of sitting for long periods.And for those who've felt guilty about never actually raising their standing desk (me), we can feel validated that we're likely not missing out on major health benefits — as long as we take time to walk away from our chairs every day.

You Searched For "eating after 5 PM health risks" and got 4 results

Study traces 60% PM2.5 pollution in India to residential cooking, power generation, industries

PTI

Indoor air pollution poses greater health risk than outdoor: Experts

PTI

Women with PCOS at higher risk developing disordered eating, study finds

PTI

Standing desks may not be a boon for health after all

Julia Pugachevsky

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