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Suicide linked to air pollution and asthma

Air pollution and asthma symptoms can raise the risk of suicide, suggests a study done on Taiwanese youth.

Suicide linked to air pollution and asthma

Air pollution and asthma symptoms can raise the risk of suicide.

Particle pollution - such as smoke, dust and heavy metals - is known to irritate the airways and worsen asthma, and several studies have linked it to heart disease. The risk of dying is relatively high in young people with asthma, and the risk may include causes of death unrelated to asthma. To investigate the association between asthma and death due to suicide, researchers followed 162,766 Taiwanese high school students aged 11 to 16 years for over 12 years. Participants were classified into three groups at baseline: current asthma (symptoms present in the past year), previous asthma (history of asthma but no symptoms in the past year), and no asthma. Each student and his or her parents completed structured questionnaires.

During the follow up, it was found that asthma symptoms doubled suicide rates, from about five in 10,000 to one in 1,000. Having a greater number of asthma symptoms at baseline was associated with a higher risk of subsequent suicide. It was noted that 1 in 14 suicides among Taiwanese youth may have been caused by asthma, a condition that affects up to 10 percent of children.

Particle pollution is known to cause inflammation in the body, which could boost inflammation from the underlying heart disease to aggravate depressive symptoms. Suicide is a relatively rare but tragic outcome, and association with asthma might reflect more common levels of mental distress.

There is a need to improve mental health care for young people, particularly those with more severe and persistent asthma symptoms to lower the risk of suicides in this group.
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