New research linking smog exposure to long-term childhood and adult asthma ‘a wakeup call,’ underlining dangers posed by polluted city air says Blueair

Mumbai, July 27th, 2016 – Delhi being the most air polluted city in India, Blueair believes that kids in the city are not getting a good start in life. According to a new research study by American scientists, the chances of getting asthma are 20 percent higher for children growing up in a polluted city, while there is an 8 percent higher risk for babies still in the womb. This finding should serve as an urgent health ‘wake-up call’ to anyone bringing up children in Delhi or any other polluted city in India, says Blueair, a leader in indoor air purification technologies.

“Children aren’t given any choice about where they live which makes this new research pretty terrifying for anyone who is bringing up a child in cities like Delhi, Beijing or anywhere else for that matter where air pollution is a daily norm,” said Blueair founder and CEO Bengt Rittri.

A father of two, Bengt started Blueair twenty years ago this year with the ambition to make the best air purifiers in the world because of his fears of the harm air pollution could be doing his son and daughter. Today millions of people worldwide daily rely on Blueair’s indoor air purifiers to help them battle indoor air contamination caused by polluted air entering homes and workplaces or posed by chemicals and other substances emitted from household cleaning products, furnishing and building materials.

A recent published study in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, compared the health of nearly 3,000 people who lived in London during the Great Smog with a similar group living people outside the British capital. The researchers reported that the occurrence of childhood asthma was 20 percent higher among people exposed to the event during their first year of life, while adult asthma rates were 9.5 percent higher. Also, the study showed that exposure while in the womb led to an 8 percent higher risk of asthma.

“The potential long run health impact on children exposed during the early stages of their life to air pollution flagged up by this latest study is a frightening concept when it comes to the health and wellness of future generations and governments need to act with speed to address the challenge,” said Bengt Rittri.