Introduction: In the past few days, sandstorms have occurred in many places in northern China. The wind and dust not only endanger traffic safety but also bring adverse effects on people's health.
Sandstorms are a weather phenomenon where dust and sand from the local area or nearby are blown by the wind, causing air turbidity and significantly reducing atmospheric visibility. Based on their intensity, they can be classified into three levels: sandstorm, dust-raising, and floating dust. A sandstorm refers to extremely turbid air with visibility within 1 kilometer; dust-raising refers to quite turbid air with horizontal visibility between 1 to 10 kilometers; and floating dust refers to evenly suspended dust and fine sand in the air, with horizontal visibility less than 10 kilometers. Sandstorms cause certain damage to both humans and animals, becoming a new threat to human health.
The harm of sandstorms to the human body
When a sandstorm strikes, the elderly and children should be the key protected population because their resistance is inherently weaker than normal people. Moreover, some elderly people already suffer from chronic bronchitis. If they do not pay attention to protection during windy and sandy weather, old diseases may recur or other diseases may be triggered. Many kinds of diseases can be directly caused by abnormal weather, especially obvious damages to eyes, nose, throat, skin, etc., which come into direct contact. Among them, the damage to eyes, nose, throat, and skin mainly manifests as stimulation symptoms and over-reactions, while lung damage is more serious and extensive.
Sandstorms first harm the lungs
When encountering high-density sand without precaution, it will first cause various stimulation symptoms such as eyes, nose, throat, etc., as well as fever and other systemic reactions. These are mostly short-term symptoms, which are self-protective ways for the human body to clear foreign objects, and generally, the damage will not persist. However, sometimes the reaction can be severe, especially when exposed repeatedly or suddenly to a large amount of high-density sand, it can manifest as sudden shortness of breath, headache, etc., and existing chronic lung diseases will become more apparent. Therefore, people with respiratory diseases and weaker resistance should best avoid going out on windy and sandy days.
Particles entering the lungs can lead to reduced bronchial ventilation function, loss of lung gas exchange function, and further cause multi-faceted harm. Long-term living in a particle-polluted environment will significantly suppress lung function, reduce the respiratory system's resistance to infection, and increase the incidence of respiratory diseases.
American scientists have also found a correlation between fine sand particles and deaths from lung and heart diseases. Australian studies show that sandstorms may be closely related to asthma outbreaks in that country. A survey conducted in China showed that among residents who have lived in some areas of Xinjiang for more than 30 years, a certain proportion suffer from non-occupational pneumoconiosis, and this is closely related to living in environments with blowing sand and floating dust. Therefore, this disease is called wind-sand pneumoconiosis.
Bacteria carried by sand invade the body
Sandstorms can cause smoke and dust carrying bacteria to invade the human respiratory tract, harming health. Smoke and dust particles are rich in various toxic and harmful substances on their surface. Particles with diameters between 0.5 to 5 microns can directly pass through the respiratory tract and settle in the lungs, triggering respiratory diseases and can be absorbed by alveoli into the blood circulation, leading to other organ diseases. Floating dust is commonly referred to as "inhalable particles" because they are small and light, able to float in the atmosphere for a long time, covering dozens of kilometers, and continuously accumulating, making the pollution worse. Floating dust can penetrate deep into the human body, invading the human alveoli, staying in different parts of the respiratory tract through collision, diffusion, and sedimentation. Particles smaller than 5 microns mostly stay in the upper respiratory tract. Particles remaining in the nose and trachea interact with sulfur dioxide and other harmful gases entering the body, stimulating and corroding the mucous membrane, causing inflammation and increasing airway resistance. Continuous action can lead to chronic nasopharyngitis and chronic bronchitis. Particles remaining in the fine bronchi and alveoli interact with nitrogen dioxide, damaging alveoli and mucous membranes, causing bronchitis and lung inflammation. A large amount of floating dust settling in the alveoli can cause chronic fibrosis of lung tissue, leading to pulmonary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and a series of lesions.
Compared with ordinary storms, sandstorms, in addition to strong winds, also contain a large amount of dust particles, powder, bacteria, viruses, and other substances harmful to the human body. Therefore, sandstorms are considered mediators of certain diseases, and due to their wide range, they can cause serious public health problems. For example, when sandstorms "blow" to downstream areas and turn into floating dust weather, there are still many micro-particles harmful to human health. So how to reduce the harm of sandstorms to the human body?
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