Coalition of the Confused

Air pollution delays the age girls start their periods and makes their menstrual cycles more irregular, according to a study

Greenies have been pumping out studies like this for decades. Car exhaust has got to be bad for you! It's got those evil microparticles in it. It does. But are they harmful and at what concentration are they harmful? The study below does not allow those basic questions to be answered.

It did not in fact measure anybody's exposure to the particles. The researchers just looked at where people lived during their childhood. And if that area had a lot of pollution they theorized that people brought up there should have bad health. And they found it was so.

But correlation is not causation and they failed to look at WHY some people lived in more polluted areas. But we know why. Because they were poor. Leafy areas are for rich people. The poor live where they can afford it, beside major roads, industrial areas etc.

So what we are most likely seeing here is that it is the poor who have worse health, which has been known for years.

If the researchers had controlled for income they might have had a story but there seems to be no indication that they did. And the effects they observed were tiny anyway, making it highly likely that any control would wipe them out.

Control for income would only be a first step, however. I set out some other problems with this sort of study a month ago

Journal abstract follows the summary below

Air pollution delays the age girls start their periods, according to the first study of its kind.

Exposure to total suspended particulate (TSP), which are particles circulating in the air that measure 0.05mm, during girls' teenage years also makes their menstrual cycles less regular, a trial found.

TSP, which is largely made up of vehicle exhaust and coal combustion fumes, is thought to disrupt hormone production in people's bodies.

In females, this can cause excessive amounts of male sex hormones, such as testosterone, which the researchers believe could delay or disrupt girls' periods.

Study author Dr Shruthi Mahalingaiah from Boston University, said: 'While air pollution exposures have been linked to cardiovascular and pulmonary disease, this study suggests there may be other systems, such as the reproductive endocrine system, that are affected as well.'

Women exposed to air pollution before getting pregnant are nearly 20 percent more likely to have babies with birth defects, research suggested in January 2018.

Living within 5km of a highly-polluted area one month before conceiving makes women more likely to give birth to babies with defects such as cleft palates or lips, a study by University of Cincinnati found.

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