How Environmental Quality Affects Human Health?

Environment has a tremendous effect on the overall human health of all living creatures, including humans. But, many individuals fail to see the correlation between the two factors due to lack of proper awareness or ignorance. 

With time, human bodies have got accustomed to a natural and organic environment. Only in the last century, the human experimentation has turned the environment into an inorganic world.

Diseases may not be new, but the current rise in the rate of diseases is alarming and has a strong positive correlation with carcinogens, like chemical cleaners, artificial hormones, pesticides, etc. Below are some of the statistics that shed light on how the changes in the physical environment have led to increase in cancer rates:

• Childhood cancer (increased by 40 to 50 percent)

• Breast cancer (increased by 60 percent)

• Brain cancer (increased by 80 t0 90 percent)

• Non-Hodgkins lymphoma (increased by 100 percent)

Apart from the cancer rates being on the rise, some of the other trends that are on the rise include:

• Birth defects

• Asthma

• Type 1 diabetes 

• Autoimmune diseases 

• Autism 

• Infertility 

It is not new information that our body being contaminated by toxins and pollutants are resulting in cell mutations and other forms of autoimmune responses. 

The increase in the rates of birth defects has been directly linked to herbicides, cleaners, household products, plastics, dry cleaning, beauty products, agricultural chemicals, air pollution, and antibiotics.

Infertility among males has an association with surfactants, household flame retardants, water pollution, lead exposure, air pollution, and pesticides. Studies have shown that Infertility in women can be linked to industrial chemicals, plastics, solvents, heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, and household flame retardants. 

Several factors like insecticides, vehicle exhaust, household pesticides, dyes, spray paint, and electrical wiring have been found to be linked with childhood Leukemia.

The statistics indicate that the way we treat our environment is not only turning us sick but also taking us on the verge of extinction. Therefore, awareness and knowledge need to spread all across among people to realize that this is a growing problem that needs to be solved.