There were almost no cities with clean air in Türkiye between 2020 and 2022, according to Turkish Thoracic Society research on harmful airborne substances conducted in line with World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. The findings also indicated that deaths due to air pollution in the three years exceeded those caused by COVID-19.

Chest disease specialists Dr. Merve Erçelik and Dr. Sabri Serhan Olcay from the team conducting the study noted that the increased cases of heart attacks at a young age are believed to be due to the damage caused by air pollution rather than vaccinations.

At the 27th annual congress of the Turkish Thoracic Society (TTS) held in the TRNC with international participation, the main theme was set as "Be the Voice for Climate, Breathe for the World" to draw attention to the greatest enemy of health, air pollution and climate change.

One of the notable presentations at the congress, attended by nearly 1,200 experts from Türkiye and around the world, was the data from the TTS Environmental Issues and Lung Health Working Group's research on air pollution in Türkiye.

Erçelik, from the Department of Chest Diseases at Süleyman Demirel University's Faculty of Medicine, and Olcay, from the Department of Chest Diseases at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University's Faculty of Medicine, emphasized that air pollution is one of the most important environmental and public health issues.

Olcay noted that fine particles of pollutants in the air resulted in over 87,000 deaths in individuals over 30 years old in 2022 alone, with 40,000 attributed to cardiovascular diseases and 18,000 to respiratory diseases.

Both experts emphasized that considering these impacts, the invisible pandemic is still ongoing.

Erçelik discussed the dangers of airborne particulate matter (PM), including compounds like nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and ozone. Particulate matter is defined as solid or aerosol particles suspended in the air, with PM 10 and PM 2.5 representing their diameter in micrometers.

PM 10 affects the upper airways and lungs, while PM 2.5 can penetrate deeper lung tissues and even reach the bloodstream. Evaluating air pollution data using World Health Organization (WHO) criteria, Erçelik emphasized that PM levels exceeding 15 micrograms/cubic meter for PM 10 and 5 micrograms/cubic meter for PM 2.5 are considered harmful to public health.

Erçelik emphasized that in their research, they detected PM 2.5 measurements in 51 provinces.

"In every province measured, values exceeded the WHO limit. PM 10 measurements exceeded the WHO limit in all provinces, including the three major cities," she said.

Every province breathes pollution

These cities had PM 10 pollution levels exceeding WHO limits by up to four times. Both the PM 10 and PM 2.5 values measured were above WHO's limit values. This means that every province in our country is breathing polluted air.

Particularly in the southeastern Anatolia and eastern Anatolia regions, provinces like Muş, Iğdır and Hakkari have the highest values nationwide. We believe this is partly due to the geographical structure of these provinces.

188K lives lost in 3 years

"The WHO has a program called AirQ Plus. In this program, we input air pollution levels of cities in our country, the surface area of our provinces and deaths of individuals over 30 years old obtained from the statistical institution," Erçelik explained.

"However, we exclude accidents, injuries and other causes of these deaths. We do not include them in the data. We calculated the premature deaths of individuals over 30 years old due to PM 2.5 between 2020-2022 (for a three-year period) in this manner. Furthermore, we excluded COVID-19 death data," she added.

Despite excluding injuries, poisonings and similar deaths, the actual number of deaths due to PM 2.5 exposure, meaning premature deaths, was approximately 188,000, according to the research. In comparison, COVID-19 deaths from 2020 to December 2022 were around 100,000.

"This data tells us that deaths due to PM (related to air pollution) are 1.8 times higher than COVID-19 deaths. Air pollution doesn't just affect our respiratory health; it primarily leads to cardiovascular diseases.

"So, the cause of heart attacks is actually this. Our cardiovascular system, respiratory system, skin, digestive system, reproductive health, children's health, all systems are affected, and this is the cause of many diseases," she stressed.

In just one year, around 40,000 cardiac deaths occurred. Olcay emphasized that air pollution can lead to many deadly health conditions, including heart disease and heart attacks.

"In our study, we attempted to calculate the proportion of deaths among individuals aged 30 and above that were attributed to air pollution. We calculated that in 2022 alone, there were 87,000 deaths due to air pollution, specifically PM 2.5 exposure. These deaths were calculated after excluding traffic accidents and other factors among those aged 30 and above," he said.

"Approximately 40,000 of these deaths were related to cardiac or cardiovascular diseases, while around 18,000 were related to respiratory diseases. Moreover, in 2022, we were still seeing the effects of COVID-19."

He continued: "During this period, sudden heart attacks and related deaths observed in our environment were sometimes mistakenly attributed to the COVID-19 vaccine, but we believe that the main cause of the approximately 40,000 deaths due to heart diseases was actually air pollution."

"We call air pollution an invisible killer, but at times, it becomes visible. There are daily reporting apps that measure the quality of the air we breathe. By checking these before going outside, especially if you have a chronic illness, and wearing a mask if the air quality is low or avoiding going out during times of intense pollution, we can protect ourselves from its effects," he stressed.