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Carbon monoxide in small doses helps reduce stress in large cities
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Carbon monoxide (CO) is a tasteless and colorless, highly toxic to humans, odorless gas. The main source of CO is the exhaust gases of vehicles and generators. Scientists have already dubbed him "quiet killer", because excessive inhalation of this substance causes poisoning of the nervous system and heart.
Scientists led by Professor Yitzhak Schnell of the Department of Environmental Problems at the University of Tel Aviv (Israel) found that low CO levels have a narcotic effect that helps to cope with the harmful environmental factors of the urban environment, namely, high noise levels.
The study was published in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.
The discovery was made in the context of a broader project aimed at studying the influence of environmental factors on the human body. Professor Schnell and his colleagues wanted to determine how people living in urban environments experience stress in their daily lives. They asked 36 healthy people between the ages of 20 and 40 to spend two days in Tel Aviv. All this time, scientists have followed the impact of four different environmental stressors: heat load (heat and cold), noise pollution, carbon monoxide levels and social load (crowd impact).
Participants in the study reported at what time interval they felt tension and discomfort, then compared these data with data recorded by sensors that measured heart rate and levels of environmental contamination. As it turned out, noise pollution became the most significant cause of stress.
The most surprising result of this study was in the analysis of data on CO content. Not only did the concentration of carbon monoxide prove to be much lower than scientists assumed (about 1-15 parts per million every half hour), and the presence of gas in small quantities apparently had a narcotic effect on participants, which led to a reduction in stress, caused by noise and crowds of people.
That is, the results of the study showed that although urbanization also increases the level of stress that a person experiences during the day, CO effectively mitigates this impact. The next stage of the study is to identify mechanisms of environmental impact on the more vulnerable segments of the population, such as children, the elderly and people with respiratory diseases.
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