What happened when healthy students used a purifier for 48 hours

We know that air purifiers reduce PM2.5 and also that PM2.5 kills people. What we didn't know, until recently, is whether air purifiers actually make people healthier until it was tested on healthy Shanghai college students.

Researchers gave 35 college students in Shanghai real or fake air purifiers and tracked several health markers for two days.

Here are the surprising results:

Lower blood inflammation

Lower blood coagulation

Less constricted blood veins

Low changes in lung function

The research found that after 48 hours, the students had significantly lower inflammation in their blood vessels. They also had lower blood coagulation (a marker of blood clotting) and less constricted blood veins. One of the only things that did not improve significantly was their lung function.

The three surprising factors to come out of this report are:

1. Air pollution is not just about lungs as epidemiological studies show the effects on our lungs are less than effects on our hearts and blood vessels. Air pollution kills about three times as many people through heart attacks and strokes than it does through lung cancer and other lung problems.

2. Air pollution affects everyone, even young, healthy people with no respiratory problems.

3. The benefits were detectable within 48 hours so not only can air pollution cause long term illnesses like cancer, it can also affect blood inflammation and vein constrictions in the short-term

These results can't be explained by a placebo effect as these results are compared to students who received a fake purifier

Source: Excerpt from Smart Air