Influence of the natural environment on human health. Human exposure to the environment

People tend to attribute their illnesses to radiation and the harmful effects of other environmental pollutants. However, the impact of ecology on human health in Russia today is only 25–50% of the totality of all influencing factors. And only in 30-40 years, according to experts, the dependence of the physical condition and well-being of citizens of the Russian Federation on the environment will increase to 50-70%.

The lifestyle they lead has the greatest impact on the health of Russians (50%). Among the components of this factor:

food character,

good and bad habits,

physical activity,

neuropsychic state (stress, depression, etc.).

In second place in terms of the degree of influence on human health is such a factor as ecology (25%), on the third - heredity, which is as much as 20%. The remaining 5% is in medicine. However, there are cases when the action of several of these 4 factors of influence on human health are superimposed on each other.

The first example: medicine is practically powerless when it comes to environmentally dependent diseases. In Russia, there are only a few hundred doctors specializing in diseases of chemical etiology - they will not be able to help all those affected by environmental pollution. As for ecology as a factor influencing human health, when assessing the degree of its influence, it is important to take into account the scale of environmental pollution:

global environmental pollution is a disaster for the entire human society, but for one individual it does not pose a particular danger;

regional environmental pollution is a disaster for the inhabitants of the region, but in most cases it is not very dangerous for the health of one particular person;

local environmental pollution - poses a serious danger both to the health of the population of a particular city / region as a whole, and to each individual inhabitant of this area. Following this logic, it is easy to determine that the dependence of a person's health on the air pollution of a particular street where he lives is even higher than on the pollution of the area as a whole. However, the strongest impact on human health renders the ecology of his dwelling and working premises. After all, we spend about 80% of our time in buildings. And indoor air, as a rule, is dry, it contains a significant concentration of chemical pollutants: in terms of the content of radioactive radon - 10 times (on the first floors and in basements - perhaps hundreds of times); in terms of aeroionic composition - 5–10 times.

Thus, for human health it is extremely important:

what floor does he live on (the first floor is more likely to be exposed to radioactive radon),

what material his house is built of (natural or artificial),

what stove does he use (gas or electric),

what is the floor in his apartment / house covered with (linoleum, carpets or less harmful material);

what the furniture is made of (SP-contains phenols);

whether there are indoor plants in the dwelling, and in what quantity.

Atmospheric air is one of the main vital elements of our environment. During the day, a person inhales about 12-15 m3 of oxygen, and emits approximately 580 liters of carbon dioxide.

In children living near powerful power plants that are not equipped with dust collectors, changes in the lungs are found that are similar to forms of silicosis. Dust containing silicon oxides causes a severe lung disease - silicosis. Large air pollution with smoke and soot, lasting for several days, can cause fatal poisoning of people. Atmospheric pollution has a particularly detrimental effect on a person in cases where meteorological conditions contribute to stagnation of air over the city.

Harmful substances contained in the atmosphere affect the human body upon contact with the surface of the skin or mucous membranes. This happens when a sweaty person (with open pores) walks along a gassed and dusty street in the summer. If, having reached the house, he does not immediately take a warm (not hot!) Shower, harmful substances have a chance to penetrate deep into his body.

Along with the respiratory organs, pollutants affect the organs of vision and smell, and by acting on the mucous membrane of the larynx, they can cause spasms of the vocal cords. Inhaled solid and liquid particles with a size of 0.6-1.0 microns reach the alveoli and are absorbed in the blood, some accumulate in the lymph nodes.

Polluted air irritates mostly the respiratory tract, causing bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. The irritants that cause these diseases include SO2 and SO3, nitrogen vapors, HCl, HNO3, H2SO4, H2S, phosphorus and its compounds. Studies conducted in the UK have shown a very strong relationship between air pollution and mortality from bronchitis.

The signs and consequences of the action of air pollutants on the human body are manifested mostly in the deterioration of the general state of health: headaches, nausea, a feeling of weakness, reduced or lost ability to work.

It can be concluded that the greatest amount of pollutants enters the human body through the lungs. Indeed, most researchers confirm that daily with 15 kg of inhaled air more harmful substances enter the human body than with water, food, dirty hands, through the skin. At the same time, the inhalation route of pollutants entering the body is also the most dangerous. Due to the fact that:

the air is polluted with a wide range of harmful substances, some of which are able to enhance the harmful effects of each other;

pollution, entering the body through the respiratory tract, bypass such a protective biochemical barrier as the liver - as a result, their toxic effect is 100 times stronger than the influence of pollutants penetrating through the gastrointestinal tract;

the digestibility of harmful substances entering the body through the lungs is much higher than that of pollutants that enter with food and water;

Air pollutants are hard to hide from: they affect human health 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The main causes of death caused by air pollution are cancer, congenital pathologies, and disruption of the immune system of the human body.

Breathing in air that contains combustion products (rarefied diesel engine exhaust), even for a short time, for example, increases the risk of getting coronary heart disease.

Industrial plants and vehicles emit black smoke and greenish-yellow dioxide, which increase the risk of early death. Even relatively low concentrations of these substances in the atmosphere cause 4 to 22 percent of deaths before the age of forty.

Exhausts from motor vehicles, as well as emissions from coal-burning enterprises, saturate the air with tiny particles of pollution that can cause blood clotting and the formation of blood clots in the human circulatory system. Polluted air also leads to an increase in pressure. This is because air pollution causes a change in the part of the nervous system that controls blood pressure levels. Air pollution in large cities accounts for about five percent of hospitalizations.

Often large industrial cities are covered with thick fog - smog. This is a very strong air pollution, which is a thick fog with impurities of smoke and gas waste or a veil of caustic gases and high concentration aerosols. This phenomenon is usually observed in calm weather. This is a very big problem in large cities, which negatively affects human health. Smog is especially dangerous for children and elderly people with a weakened body, suffering from cardiovascular diseases and diseases of the respiratory system. The highest concentration of harmful substances in the surface air is observed in the morning, during the day the smog rises under the influence of ascending air currents.

A very dangerous symptom for humanity is that air pollution increases the likelihood of having children with malformations. The extreme concentration of harmful substances in the atmosphere causes premature births, newborns are small, sometimes dead children are born. If a pregnant woman breathes air containing elevated concentrations of ozone and carbon monoxide, especially in the second month of pregnancy, she has a threefold increase in the possibility of giving birth to a child with such a developmental defect as a cleft lip, cleft palate, and defects in cardiac genesis. The future of mankind depends on clean air, water, forests. Only the right attitude to nature will allow future generations to be healthy and happy.

The environment is the totality of everything that is around a person during his life. It consists of natural components, such as: earth, air, water, solar radiation, and man-made, which include all manifestations of human civilization. The health of the human body is directly or indirectly affected by a variety of properties and qualities of all environmental environmental factors. About this, about the influence of environmental factors on human health, we are with the editors of the site www..

Let's consider the most important of them:

1. climatic factors

Weather conditions have an impact on the well-being and normal performance of a person. With this in our time, no one will argue. For example, if the air temperature has dropped significantly, you need to protect the body from hypothermia. Without doing this, a person risks getting sick with acute respiratory diseases.

Environmental factors such as changes in atmospheric pressure, air humidity, electromagnetic field of the planet, precipitation in the form of rain or snow, movement of atmospheric fronts, cyclones, gusts of wind - lead to a change in well-being.

They can cause headaches, exacerbation of diseases of the joints, drops in blood pressure. But weather changes affect different people differently. If a person is healthy, then his body will quickly adjust to the new climatic conditions and unpleasant sensations will bypass him. In a sick or weakened human body, the ability to quickly adjust to changes in the weather is impaired, so it suffers from general malaise and pain.

Conclusion - try to maintain the state of health at the proper level, respond in a timely manner to environmental changes and climatic factors will not cause you discomfort. To acclimatize the body, do exercises daily, walk for an hour, observe the daily routine.

2. Chemical and biological factors

Technogenic activities of people lead to an increase in emissions of production waste into the environment. Chemical compounds from waste enter the soil, air and water spaces, and then, through the use of contaminated food and water, inhalation of air saturated with harmful elements, they enter the body. As a result, all human organs, including the brain, contain several milligrams of poisons that poison life. Exposure to toxic substances can cause nausea, coughing, and dizziness. If they regularly get inside, then the development of chronic poisoning is possible. Its signs: fatigue, constant fatigue, insomnia or drowsiness, apathy, frequent mood swings, impaired attention, psychomotor reactions. If you suspect signs of chronic poisoning, you should undergo a medical examination and take action, and possibly even change your place of residence if this threatens your life and health.

3. Nutrition

Eating is one of the basic instincts of the body. The intake of nutrients necessary for normal life comes from the external environment. The health of the body largely depends on the quality and quantity of food. Medical studies have shown that for the optimal course of physiological processes, a necessary condition is a rational, nutritious diet. The body daily needs a certain amount of protein compounds, carbohydrates, fats, trace elements and vitamins. In the case when nutrition is inadequate, irrational, conditions arise for the development of diseases of the cardiovascular system, digestive canals, metabolic disorders.

For example, constant overeating of foods rich in carbohydrates and fats can cause obesity, diabetes, vascular and heart muscle diseases.
The use of genetically modified organisms and products containing high concentrations of harmful substances leads to a deterioration in general health and the development of a wide range of diseases. But all this comes to a person precisely from the environment, so be vigilant when choosing food!

Of course, this review is not at all complete, and one can write a weighty volume about the influence of each of the listed and not listed environmental factors on a person ... but, unfortunately, the framework of the informational article does not allow this. But this is not the main thing, the main thing is that as many people as possible be puzzled by these problems - which I hope for!

Elena_Nevskih, www.site
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Introduction

My work is called "Ecology of my home". First of all, I want to define what "ecology" is. The term "ecology" is derived from two Greek words ("oikos" - house, dwelling; "logos" - science), meaning literally "the science of the house." In a more general sense, ecology is a science that studies the relationship of organisms and communities with their environment. There is also another equally important concept of "ecology" - ecology means the sum of knowledge about the economy of nature, ecology studies the relationship of living organisms with the components of the organic and inorganic world that surrounds them, with which they directly or indirectly come into contact.

I believe that my topic is relevant today, because our environment is very heavily polluted. We breathe polluted air, drink water containing many chemical elements and other harmful impurities. The purpose of my work is to consider all these adverse factors and analyze how the lack of certain natural resources affects human health. Also in my work, I want to describe the village in which I live, what environmental problems exist in my area, analyze what sources of pollution prevail, and how to deal with it. I would like to consider what kind of water supply we have, how is the water purified? Raise the issue of waste disposal, how far from home is the railway, the highway - what are the consequences of this, how does it all affect human health ?! You also need to make a project of your environmentally friendly house, what it will be built from, what will be in it. What area will the house be in? In conclusion, summarize and offer your own ways to solve the problems raised.

The impact of the environment on human health

Reason singled out man from the animal world and gave him great power. For centuries, man has sought not to adapt to the natural environment, but to make it convenient for his existence. Now we have realized that any human activity has an impact on the environment, and the deterioration of the biosphere is dangerous for all living beings, including humans. A comprehensive study of a person, his relationship with the outside world led to the understanding that health is not only the absence of disease, but also the physical, mental and social well-being of a person. Health is a capital given to us not only by nature from birth, but also by the conditions in which we live. Currently, human economic activity is increasingly becoming the main source of pollution of the biosphere.

Gaseous, liquid and solid industrial wastes enter the natural environment in increasing quantities. Various chemicals in the waste, getting into the soil, air or water, pass through the ecological links from one chain to another, eventually getting into the human body. It is almost impossible to find a place on the globe where pollutants are present in one or another concentration. Even in the ice of Antarctica, where there are no industrial facilities, and people live only at small scientific stations, scientists have discovered various toxic (poisonous) substances of modern industries. They are brought here by atmospheric flows from other continents. Substances polluting the natural environment are very diverse.

Depending on their nature, concentration, time of action on the human body, they can cause various adverse effects. Short-term exposure to small concentrations of such substances can cause dizziness, nausea, sore throat, cough. The ingestion of large concentrations of toxic substances into the human body can lead to loss of consciousness, acute poisoning and even death. An example of such an action can be smog formed in large cities in calm weather, or accidental emissions of toxic substances by industrial enterprises into the atmosphere. The body's reactions to pollution depend on individual characteristics: age, gender, health status. As a rule, children, the elderly and sick people are more vulnerable. With a systematic or periodic intake of relatively small amounts of toxic substances into the body, chronic poisoning occurs.

In chronic poisoning, the same substances in different people can cause various damage to the kidneys, blood-forming organs, nervous system, and liver. Similar signs are observed in radioactive contamination of the environment. Thus, in areas exposed to radioactive contamination as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, the incidence among the population, especially children, has increased many times over. Doctors have established a direct link between the increase in the number of people suffering from allergies, bronchial asthma, cancer, and the deterioration of the environmental situation in the region. It has been reliably established that such production wastes as chromium, nickel, beryllium, asbestos, and many pesticides are carcinogens, that is, they cause cancer. Smoking causes great harm to human health. A smoker not only inhales harmful substances himself, but also pollutes the atmosphere and endangers other people. It has been established that people who are in the same room with a smoker inhale even more harmful substances than he himself. In addition to chemical pollutants, biological pollutants are also found in the natural environment, causing various diseases in humans. These are pathogens, viruses, helminths, protozoa. They can be in the atmosphere, water, soil, in the body of other living organisms, including in the person himself. The most dangerous pathogens of infectious diseases. They have different stability in the environment. Some are able to live outside the human body for only a few hours; being in the air, in water, on various objects, they quickly die. Others may live in the environment from a few days to several years. For others, the environment is a natural habitat. For the fourth, other organisms, such as wild animals, are a place of conservation and reproduction. Often, the source of infection is the soil in which pathogens of tetanus, botulism, gas gangrene, and some fungal diseases constantly live. They can enter the human body if the skin is damaged, with unwashed food, or if the rules of hygiene are violated. Pathogenic microorganisms can penetrate the groundwater and cause human infectious diseases. Therefore, water from artesian wells, wells, springs must be boiled before drinking. Open water sources are especially polluted: rivers, lakes, ponds.

Numerous cases are known when contaminated water sources caused epidemics of cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery. With an airborne infection, infection occurs through the respiratory tract when air containing pathogens is inhaled. Such diseases include influenza, whooping cough, mumps, diphtheria, measles and others. The causative agents of these diseases get into the air when coughing, sneezing, and even when sick people talk. Man has always lived in a world of sounds and noise. Sound is called such mechanical vibrations of the external environment, which are perceived by the human hearing aid (from 16 to 20,000 vibrations per second). Vibrations of a higher frequency are called ultrasound, a smaller one is called infrasound. Noise - loud sounds that have merged into a discordant sound. For all living organisms, including humans, sound is one of the environmental influences. In nature, loud sounds are rare, the noise is relatively weak and short. The combination of sound stimuli gives animals and humans time to assess their nature and form a response. Sounds and noises of high power affect the hearing aid, nerve centers, can cause pain and shock. This is how noise pollution works. The quiet rustle of leaves, the murmur of a stream, bird voices, a light splash of water and the sound of the surf are always pleasant to a person. They calm him, relieve stress. But the natural sounds of the voices of Nature are becoming more and more rare, they disappear completely or are drowned out by industrial traffic and other noises. Prolonged noise adversely affects the organ of hearing, reducing the sensitivity to sound.

The noise level is measured in units expressing the degree of sound pressure - decibels. This pressure is not perceived indefinitely. The noise level of 20-30 decibels (dB) is practically harmless to humans, this is a natural background noise. As for loud sounds, here the permissible limit is approximately 80 decibels. A sound of 130 decibels already causes a painful sensation in a person, and 150 becomes unbearable for him. Not without reason in the Middle Ages there was an execution “under the bell”. The hum of the bell ringing tormented and slowly killed the convict. The level of industrial noise is also very high. In many jobs and noisy industries, it reaches 90-110 decibels or more. Not much quieter in our house, where new sources of noise appear - the so-called household appliances. Currently, scientists in many countries of the world are conducting various studies to determine the impact of noise on human health. Their studies have shown that noise causes significant harm to human health, but absolute silence frightens and depresses him. Conversely, scientists have found that sounds of a certain intensity stimulate the process of thinking, especially the process of counting. Each person perceives noise differently. Much depends on age, temperament, state of health, environmental conditions. Constant exposure to strong noise can not only adversely affect hearing, but also cause other harmful effects - ringing in the ears, dizziness, headache, increased fatigue. Very noisy modern music also dulls the hearing, causes nervous diseases. Noise is insidious, its harmful effect on the body is invisibly, imperceptibly. Violations in the human body against noise are practically defenseless. Currently, doctors are talking about noise disease, which develops as a result of exposure to noise with a primary lesion of hearing and the nervous system.

A few decades ago, it never occurred to anyone to connect their performance, their emotional state and well-being with the activity of the Sun, with the phases of the Moon, with magnetic storms and other cosmic phenomena. In any natural phenomenon that surrounds us, there is a strict repetition of processes: day and night, high and low tide, winter and summer. Rhythm is observed not only in the motion of the Earth, Sun, Moon and stars, but is also an integral and universal property of living matter, a property penetrating into all life phenomena - from the molecular level to the level of the whole organism. In the course of historical development, a person has adapted to a certain rhythm of life, due to rhythmic changes in the natural environment and the energy dynamics of metabolic processes. Currently, there are many rhythmic processes in the body, called biorhythms. These include the rhythms of the heart, breathing, bioelectrical activity of the brain. Our whole life is a constant change of rest and activity, sleep and wakefulness, fatigue from hard work and rest. In the body of every person, like the tides of the sea, a great rhythm eternally reigns, arising from the connection of life phenomena with the rhythm of the Universe and symbolizing the unity of the world. The central place among all rhythmic processes is occupied by circadian rhythms, which are of the greatest importance for the organism. The reaction of the body to any impact depends on the phase of the circadian rhythm (there is the time of day) ... The climate also has a serious impact on the well-being of a person, affecting him through weather factors. Weather conditions include a complex of physical conditions: atmospheric pressure, humidity, air movement, oxygen concentration, the degree of disturbance of the Earth's magnetic field, the level of atmospheric pollution. With a sharp change in the weather, physical and mental performance decreases, diseases become aggravated, the number of errors, accidents and even deaths increases. Most of the physical factors of the environment, in interaction with which the human body has evolved, are of an electromagnetic nature.

It is well known that near fast-flowing water, the air is refreshing and invigorating. It contains many negative ions. For the same reason, we imagine clean and refreshing air after a thunderstorm. Weather changes do not equally affect the well-being of different people. In a healthy person, when the weather changes, the physiological processes in the body are timely adjusted to the changed environmental conditions. As a result, the protective reaction is enhanced, and healthy people practically do not feel the negative effects of the weather.

A person always strives to the forest, to the mountains, to the seashore, river or lake. Here he feels a surge of strength, vivacity. No wonder they say that it is best to relax in the bosom of nature. Sanatoriums and rest houses are built in the most beautiful corners. This is not an accident. It turns out that the surrounding landscape can have a different effect on the psycho-emotional state. Contemplation of the beauties of nature stimulates vitality and calms the nervous system. Plant biocenoses, especially forests, have a strong healing effect. The craving for natural landscapes is especially strong among the inhabitants of the city. Even in the Middle Ages, it was noticed that the life expectancy of city dwellers is less than that of rural dwellers. The lack of greenery, narrow streets, small courtyards-wells, where sunlight practically did not penetrate, created unfavorable conditions for human life. With the development of industrial production in the city and its environs, a huge amount of waste polluting the environment has appeared. A variety of factors associated with the growth of cities, in one way or another, affect the formation of a person, his health.

This makes scientists increasingly seriously study the impact of the environment on urban residents. It turns out that the conditions in which a person lives, what the height of the ceilings in his apartment and how sound-permeable its walls are, how a person gets to his place of work, whom he treats on a daily basis, how people around him treat each other, depends on the mood of a person, his ability to work , activity - his whole life. The saturation of the environment and production with high-speed and high-speed machines increases stress, requires additional efforts from a person, which leads to overwork. Polluted air in the city, poisoning the blood with carbon monoxide, causes the same harm to a non-smoker as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day by a smoker. A serious negative factor in modern cities is the so-called noise pollution. Given the ability of green spaces to favorably influence the state of the environment, they must be as close as possible to the place of life, work, study and recreation of people.

The urban landscape should not be a monotonous stone desert. In the architecture of the city, one should strive for a harmonious combination of social and biological aspects. The modern city should be considered as an ecosystem in which the most favorable conditions for human life are created. Consequently, these are not only comfortable dwellings, transport, and a diverse service sector. This is a habitat favorable for life and health; clean air and green urban landscape. It is no coincidence that ecologists believe that in a modern city a person should not be divorced from nature, but, as it were, dissolved in it. Therefore, the total area of ​​green spaces in cities should occupy more than half of its territory.

Man, like other types of living organisms, is able to adapt, that is, adapt to environmental conditions. Human adaptation to new natural and industrial conditions can be characterized as a set of socio-biological properties and characteristics necessary for the sustainable existence of an organism in a particular ecological environment. The life of each person can be seen as a constant adaptation, but our ability to do this has certain limits. Also, the ability to restore their physical and mental strength for a person is not infinite. At present, a significant part of human diseases are associated with the deterioration of the ecological situation in our environment: pollution of the atmosphere, water and soil, poor-quality food, and increased noise.

Adapting to adverse environmental conditions, the human body experiences a state of tension, fatigue. Tension is the mobilization of all mechanisms that ensure a certain activity of the human body. When a healthy person is tired, a redistribution of possible reserve functions of the body can occur, and after rest, strength will reappear. Among people, two extreme adaptive types of a person can be distinguished. The first of them is the sprinter, which is characterized by high resistance to short-term extreme factors and poor tolerance to long-term loads. Reverse type - stayer. The study of human adaptive capabilities and the development of appropriate recommendations is currently of great practical importance.

Life safety Viktor Sergeevich Alekseev

1. The impact of the environment on human health

Health is associated with social relations and "parameters" of the external environment. The environment includes a number of environments: natural and social, domestic and industrial, space and terrestrial. Man, as a living organism, exchanges substances, energy and information with the environment.

The species affiliation of a person is fixed in heredity and is associated with biological evolution. But man, as a social being, began not only to adapt to the environment, but also to adapt it to himself, began to produce the necessary means of life. As a result of production practice, humanity has become a powerful transforming force, which manifests itself much faster than the course of the natural evolution of the biosphere, and is capable of creating a "second nature" - the technosphere.

Mankind as an element of the ecosystem is connected with all terrestrial forms of life: with air, water, soil. Production, armed with science and equipped with modern technology, often disrupts the normal functioning of natural systems, the totality of which is our habitat.

The vital activity of the human body proceeds within certain boundaries established by nature. Normal body temperature and environmental temperature favorable for a person; normal pressure in the blood vessels and atmospheric pressure around; normal amount of fluid in the body and normal air humidity, etc.

The economic intrusion of man into the biosphere in a number of parameters has sharply violated the optimum of the established natural harmony.

Some synthetic, artificial materials and industrial wastes are alien to the physical and chemical structure of living organisms, and sometimes they are simply poisonous. These substances, due to the circulation of water and air, spread and penetrate into the stratosphere and ocean depths, causing industrial pollution of water, air, and soil.

Violation of the ecological balance - "environmental scissors" - is dangerous by disrupting the mechanisms of adaptation. A kind of biosocial arrhythmia arose - a mismatch between the natural and social rhythms of human life.

It is difficult to maintain health when a person, along with the benefits of civilization, is burdened with its costs.

The concept of "environmental pollution" includes three components:

1) what is polluted: atmosphere, hydrosphere, soil;

2) what pollutes: industry, transport, noise, etc.;

3) what is polluted with: heavy metals, dust, pesticides, etc.

They allow you to determine the quality of the environment in which a person lives. The external environment is considered unhealthy if it causes health problems, if it is difficult to adapt to it. There is also an extreme environment in which human life is simply impossible without its preliminary “re-equipment” for life, for example, the Arctic and Antarctica.