Air pollution is not good for anyone. Observational studies show that exposure to air pollutants, especially over a long period of time, can increase people’s risks for lung inflammation, heart disease, weight gain and premature death. Heart attacks rise precipitously when air quality is poor.
People who exercise are hardly immune. In fact, working out is likely to amplify the dangers from air pollution, scientists believe, since exercise requires we breathe more. By most estimates, we draw in 10 to 20 times more air when we strenuously work out than when we sit still.
If that air is polluted, we get an outsize dose of toxins. According to a 2012 review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, people who exercised moderately for an hour in a lab room containing diesel fumes wound up with far more chemical particles embedded deep within their lungs than when they spent the same amount of time resting in the polluted air.
The potential health impacts are worrisome.
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