Research reveals air pollution is advancing the average age that people in the UK acquire long-term illnesses. For some conditions people could be getting ill more than two years earlier because of the air pollution they breathe.

The first author of the research from Prof Hualiang Lin’s group at Sun Yat-sen University said: “Our study demonstrates that air pollution is not just a risk factor for falling ill; it acts as a silent accelerator that robs individuals of their healthiest years.”

Using up to 15 years of health records, the researchers tracked the first occurrence of 78 illnesses in 396,000 people in the UK. This included more than 900,000 hospital admissions. The people studied were all between 39 and 70 years old when they volunteered to join UK Biobank in 2006 to 2010. Each person had supplied information including age, smoking status, alcohol consumption and poverty that could then be allowed for in the air pollution analysis.

The researcher continued: “The most striking finding was the sheer breadth and severity of the impact from air pollution exposure. We found that air pollutants were significantly associated with the accelerated onset different chronic diseases, spanning almost every major organ system. We were particularly surprised by the high sensitivity of neurological and psychiatric disorders.”

These include schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, dementia and the uncontrolled and sometimes painful spasms of dystonia.

The researchers were also able to use the data to predict the illnesses that could have been avoided if UK pollution had been lowered to meet the 2021 World Health Organization guidelines.

The team explained the next stage of their analysis: “By using the Accelerated Failure Time model, we were able to directly visualise how pollution ‘steals’ healthy years.”

They found that the 360,000 people in the study could have experienced a total of 539,000 fewer years of illness. For the average person in the study this was a gain of just over one year of healthy life, although this was not evenly spread among the group.

By reducing particle pollution, illnesses that would have occurred on average at least six months later included schizophrenia, bone fractures (consistent with separate work on air pollution and osteoporosis), high blood pressure and diabetes. The greatest overall gains in healthy years of life would have come from the most common illnesses that were advanced by air pollution, including high blood pressure, asthma, diabetes and thyroid problems.

The researcher said: “By reducing pollution, we can significantly delay the onset of multiple chronic diseases, thereby easing the immense pressure on healthcare systems and preserving societal productivity.”

Dr Amy Ronaldson, of King’s College London, who was not involved in the research but had previously studied the people in UK Biobank, said: “Our earlier work highlighted that people exposed to higher levels of air pollution were more likely to develop multiple chronic conditions. This new study goes further by suggesting that pollution may also accelerate the onset of many diseases.

“That means more illness, earlier in life, concentrated in the communities already most exposed to poor air quality. Reducing air pollution has to be part of any serious strategy to reduce health inequalities, ease pressure on the NHS, and improve population health.”