A new study suggests that soot emissions from diesel trucks may exacerbate asthma in children. "We went in and actually measured personal exposures to traffic pollution, which had not been done before," said George Thurston, associate professor of environmental medicine at the New York University School of Medicine and one of the study's principal researchers.
"Our results confirm that diesel soot particles in air pollution are causing exacerbations of asthma in children."
The study, which was conducted by researchers at NYU and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, monitored the expression of asthmatic symptoms in 40 schools students in New York.
The study found that asthmatic symptoms, particularly wheezing, doubled among the children on high traffic days when diesel soot emissions were highest, United Press International, reported.
The major type of air pollutant associated with exacerbated asthma symptoms was elemental carbon. "Diesel vehicles are the vehicles that emit this elemental carbon soot, in general, gasoline vehicles don't," Thurston told United Press International.
The study found that only about 10 percent of the total mass of tiny particles in the air was elemental carbon, but it was this portion that was most closely related to children's adverse health effects.
Elemental carbon has also been cited as a causal agent in asthma in a number of other laboratory studies.
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