SEATTLE, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- A University of Washington study suggested that urban air pollution may be more dangerous to humans than previously believed.
The seven-year study of 58,600 postmenopausal women, printed in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that those women living in areas with the highest levels of pollution, including Cincinnati and Riverside, Calif., faced a 150 percent greater risk of heart disease than those breathing less polluted air, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The study said the risk posed by the pollution, specifically a dangerous variety of soot known as fine particulate matter, is nearly equivalent to the added risk of smoking cigarettes.
Rogene Henderson, a pollution expert who heads the Environmental Protection Agency's panel of outside scientists, said the study could lead to a push for a lower legal limit of fine particles in the air. However, an EPA representative told the newspaper "it's too soon to say" whether the agency would give weight to the study's findings and alter policy to reflect them.
