Posted on 02/07/2011 5:39:15 PM PST by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Children raised in homes heated by coal may suffer stunted growth from prolonged exposure to indoor air pollution, according to a study of families in the Czech Republic.
By age 3, children who lived in households where coal was used for heat were about a half-inch shorter, on average, than those raised in homes that relied on other forms of heating fuel. The effect on growth was even greater for children exposed to both coal and cigarette smoke at home, according to the researchers, who report their findings in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Whether these children will catch up to their peers on the growth chart, or if the effect is permanent, is unclear, the scientists said. However, studies of children exposed to cigarette smoke, which stunts growth, show that shorter stature continues into adolescence and possibly into adulthood, said Irva Hertz-Picciotto of the University of California, Davis, who is an author of the new study.
Roughly half the world's population burns coal, dung, wood or crop wastes for heating or cooking, according to the World Health Organization. Indoor air pollution causes up to 1.6 million deaths a year, the group has estimated.
Coal smoke is known to cause lung damage, but the new study "is significant because it indicates there's some systemic effect" on the entire body, Hertz-Picciotto said.
Her group looked at 1,133 children from two regions of the Czech Republic where coal is used widely. The researchers matched growth history of children from their medical records at birth and at 36 months with information collected from household surveys completed by their parents.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Coal varies greatly in composition from area to area. Most coals I have seen are hardly "loaded" with heavy metals. You would have to breath smoke constantly to get enough heavy metals to make a difference similar to the lab rats eating a steady diet of saccharine just to make them get cancer.
Second, you seem to assume the coal stove leaks flue gas into the building. It is possible for a flue to be properly constructed to carry flue gas outdoors. In addition, the stove burning inside a building quite possibly could cause better air quality indoors by bringing in fresh air due to the draft.
As others pointed out it is possible the children are shorter due to poor diet since people who heat with coal are more likely to be poor. I'd also say it is possible this is junk science. I don't recall hearing about short blacksmiths in the old days.
I have great memories being young and staying at my brother’s place that was heated with Warm Morning coal stove. It burned anthracite and sometimes the sides would glow red if you fed it too much. At that point we’d have to open the windows it was so hot in the room.
I would say it has more to do with the location than anything, we heated with coal and wood, but we ate high on the hog. A county boy will survive. We slaughtered four to six hogs every winter my dad was alive. Have no ideal how many gallons and quart jars my mom canned every year. But those dried apply pies were wonderful. How many ten year plans did the communist have for their collectives anyway.
I was in Berlin in 2000, and you could still see bullet holes in buildings in the East from WWII.......
From as early as he can remember, my father had to haul coal, dumped at the end of the street, into the basement of the family home. He’s 87 and hasn’t taken a pill in his life.
Unless the coal is burned in the open inside the home and not inside a stove vented outside, how is it reducing O2 or has enough CO to block but not asphyxiate those using it for heat?
What crap. The four of us kids grew up in a house heated by a coal furnace and it didn’t stunt our growth. We were all taller than our parents.
After a couple of generations the American colonists were considerably taller than most British of the time. There are a lot of factors that play into it. Diet, activities, living conditions etc.
I'm surprised they haven't claimed that burning peat causes infertility or some such nonsense.
No wonder I only made it to 6'1" 200lbs. as I was exposed to both and also smoked til I was 35.
Made it to six-foot two with no problems, and I guess I'm glad all those coal fumes slowed me down.
Otherwise I'd be about eleven feet tall.
The term "shrimp" was born in our city.
This will change when flues are invented. I saw the future in a snow globe.
It requires a larger carbon footprint to create the smaller person - there's no net gain.
Who does these idiot studies? And why? Because they come up with a theory and get someone to fund it. Tired of this sh?t.
Utter nonsense...all of the men in my coal mining and coal burning family are well over six feet tall and 225 lbs.
I grew up with a big coal furnace downstairs heating our house. I’m 5’10”.
Maybe they’re shorter there because those burning coal don’t have the proper finances to buy food? It’s probably nutritional.
But sans the coal they might have been 6’ 3 1/2”, LOL.
There are more preferable ways to heat but generating false data for political reasons shows right through this fabrication.
Bituminous, multiregional. What ones are you familiar with? I can't share my clients' data, but many universities have good info, particularly Penn State and West Virginia University.
Unless the coal is burned in the open inside the home and not inside a stove vented outside, how is it reducing O2 or has enough CO to block but not asphyxiate those using it for heat?
It doesn't have to reach levels of acute effects--I'm talking chronic exposures. And I'm hypothesizing...frankly, I believe that if the results are real, then it's chemical exposure, not radioactivity or oxygen deficiency, but I'm not a physician.
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