Personal and Environmental Health

 By Paul Salmon, Ph.D., M.S.

Anyone who has seen Al Gore's recent film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth', can't help but be struck by the serious challenges we are currently facing with respect to not only our personal health, but that of our world as well. There is a rapidly accelerating trend toward global warming and environmental pollution that is already having profound social, psychological, economic, political, and health related effects.  

An image popped into my mind as I was thinking about how to balance personal and environmental health needs in a responsible way. Focusing exclusively on the former while ignoring the latter would be like working out in the fitness center of a cruise liner which is taking on water and gradually sinking. Obsessed with ‘getting in shape', we ignore warnings and maybe even the final call to ‘abandon ship!'. Such an attitude toward health suggests either an inability or unwillingness to view it in a larger context, one that takes into account the environment in which we live. Failure to do so will increasingly compromise our health, despite all the time and money we invest in gym memberships, organic food, stairmaster machines, and triathalons.

A recent article in the New York Times about training for World Championship and Olympic marathons reported that a group of coaches and physiologists agreed on one point: That the greatest challenge facing marathon runners is contending with high heat and humidity. This is really nothing new: Not only runners, but anyone who participates in endurance events is well aware of the decrease in physiological and biomechanical efficiency that accompanies even modest increases in either one. As temperature and humidity rise, the cardiovascular system has to work harder and harder to cool the body, which it does by diverting blood to capillaries located near the surface of the skin to promote heat transfer via evaporation. This occurs at the expense of supplying oxygen-enriched blood to working muscles, and results in diminished blood volume which in turn leads to compensatory increases in heart rate and blood pressure.

Of course, the obvious way to help counteract the adverse effects of heat and humidity on blood volume is via adequate hydration, a fact which is well understood. However, adding to the challenge of running under high heat and humidity is another factor to contend with: air pollution, which can trigger asthmatic attacks. Marathons and other races conducted in urban environments can expose participants to unhealthy levels of carbon monoxide, ozone, and other pollutants. I think of this every time I drive along Hurstbourne Lane on a hot day and encounter an occasional jogger along the roadside, sweating and inhaling the exhaust of hundreds of cars, mine included. What does this say about the bigger health picture?

The body does not adapt especially well to heat, humidity, and pollution from a physiological standpoint. The situation appears to be different from high altitude conditions, where training can improve cardiovascular efficiency and promote adaptation. Immediate solutions to heat, humidity, and pollution involve hydration and, for those who develop asthma, medication.

While these solutions may work well at the individual level, they do not address a broader issue of concern. Our lifestyles and energy consumption patterns appear to be accelerating, or at least contributing to, a variety of environmental problems --- among them global warming and pollution – that have adverse effects at levels ranging from the individual to the planet. Health and fitness are admirable pursuits, but it's important to place individual goals in the broader context of what is what is healthy for the environment and ultimately, everyone else as well.

aul Salmon, Ph.D., M.S., is a faculty member in the Psychology Department of UofL, an ACSM-certified Health Fitness Instructor, an RYT/200-certified yoga instructor, and a member of KHFM's Advisory Board. He can be contacted at: psalmon@lousiville.edu.