A friend of mine has asked me if I knew anyone who would participate in the following study.
They are looking for healthy cyclists and non-cyclists to participate in a small but important study at Queen Mary University of London looking at the pulmonary and systemic effects of pollution in healthy adults.
DO YOU COMMUTE IN LONDON? ARE YOU: 18-40? NON-SMOKER? RELATIVELY HEALTHY?
You would have to:
1) Complete a brief (1 page) questionnaire about their commuting/cycling habits
2) Inhale nebulised/vaopurised saline for 30 mins (not unpleasant or difficult) and spit into a pot
3) Spend a 24 hour period wearing my carbon monitor with some sort of GPS
4) Maybe… Have some blood taken (not essential but helpful)
Am looking to see:
1) How residential/commuting/working location impacts upon atmospheric carbon exposure (ultrafine carbon is a little toxic).
2) How carbon exposure relates to lung carbon content (will probably be worse with cyclists as they breathe faster and deeper and are closer to the exhaust)
3) How carbon exposure relates to blood markers of inflammation and tissue damage.
Absolute bollocks! Air pollution? In 2010? In London? In days of yore, when men were men and cycle couriers rode Muddy Fox tanks with disc wheels, every time one got a sight infection the green shit coughed up was always generously flecked with black from the exhaust fumes of buses and taxis. Twenty-odd years too late.
Obviously this isn't the first time this test or something similar has been run. This is test is being run to update the information, feel free to sign up and help..........god forbid anyone on here will moan about it!
What is the purpose of the study? Why not just try and measure the pollution in London? What has it to do with Cycle Commuters, if anything?
If you Cycle and Commute, that is a choice you have made for yourself. Commuters as it is don't spend an inordinate amount of time commuting. Pollution varies considerably around all the different areas in inner and outer London.
Better yet, remove all cars from inner London and do us all a huge favour.
Somewhere in there - see if you can spot me NON-SMOKER?
Does the pope shit in the woods, no, so of course. Anyone got a spare fag?
RELATIVELY HEALTHY?
Relative to what? Fat Barry from Birmingham who had to be forklifted out of his house after they knocked a wall down, and transported to his local hospital on a low loader? (I read this in the Sun some years back, so it must be true)
Er yes thanks. 20 a day and a weeks units in an afternoon.
Summery? Nah, not yet my feet are still cold.
Cycling in London is obviously within a polluted atmosphere. I cough up black stuff, have itchy eyes, and another courier pointed out to me helpfully that my ears were full of 'Road Dirt' after my first week on the road - and that was a balmy summer week.
I've seen hairy Dave collect a sample of road water from his ride in to Wood St from East London and it was black. Brake dust, vomit, cat piss - its all in there.
Save your money and plan the next stage. We all know its shit, its just that I havn't got any sensible helpful shit to say on how to quickly and effectivly get pollution down.
Ban cars, electric buses, cargo bikes, and walk/cycle to commute. But thats too easy right, without carefully and expensively collected evidence?
Anyway, its gonna rain tomorrow I just checked BBC. . .safe journeys
"Why not just try and measure the pollution in London?" I'm sure if you wanted to search that there interwebz you will some results of studies into pollution in London.
"What has it to do with Cycle Commuters, if anything?" Answer in OP.
"If you Cycle and Commute, that is a choice you have made for yourself. Commuters as it is don't spend an inordinate amount of time commuting. Pollution varies considerably around all the different areas in inner and outer London." Your point is?
"Better yet, remove all cars from inner London and do us all a huge favour." I couldn't agree more, but it is unrealistic.
This study is looking at whether we can use new, safe, portable technology to predict its health effects on the individual - in particular young children - who have much less choice about their environmental exposure (I am a paediatrician - hence the focus). This data will not be "expensively collected", but it will be done properly.
Cyclists can help with the study because they may (or may not) represent an extreme of exposure, but sedentary, relatively unexposed people are being recruited also in order to get a good spread of data.
I have biked across London for years, the outcome of this study is not going to make me stop, but it may help us guide individual and public health interventions for those that can't make these calls for themselves, and maybe everyone will benefit...
Anyone that is interested give respond to the original post. If not then thanks for reading.
