High blood pressure and environmental pollution

PCBs used to be everywhere until their production was banned in the late 1970s. Traces of PCBs remain throughout the ecosystem. They have been linked to cancer, liver damage, and other conditions. A study of 750 residents in an Alabama town that was a centre of PCB production for more than 40 years has found that those people with high levels of PCBs in their blood and fatty tissue also have much higher blood pressure than those with lower levels. The link between the pollutant and blood pressure is dose dependent – that is, the more PCBs, the higher the blood pressure. People with the highest concentrations of PCBs were four times more likely to have high blood pressure than people with minimal or no PCBs. Even in people with moderate amounts of PCBs, blood pressure was substantially elevated.

• ‹ previous
• 26 of 29
• next ›