Influence of environmental factors on human health. Outdoor air pollution
Chapter 3. Natural environmental factors of negative impact.
Negative effects on humans can be caused by natural factors , which are subdivided into abiotic (impact of inanimate nature) and biotic (influence of organisms). In the aspect of negative impacts on a person, these factors are often interconnected and complex.
TO abiotic factorsinclude: climatic (physical) - light, temperature, humidity, air velocity, atmospheric pressure, radiation, electrical state of the environment, etc.; edaphogenic (soil) - mechanical composition, moisture capacity, air permeability, pressure, etc.; orographic - relief, height above sea level, slope exposure, etc.; chemical - the composition of the atmosphere, sea and fresh waters, bottom sediments, soil solutions, concentration, acidity, etc.; integrative - weather, climate, etc.
Negative abiotic factors include natural disasters (the so-called "natural disasters"), which are called dangerous natural phenomena or processes that are of an emergency nature and lead to disruption of the daily way of life of significant groups of the population, human casualties, as well as the destruction of material values: strong wind (tornado, tornado, simum, dry wind); dust storm; volcanic activity; earthquake; flood, storm, tsunami, high and low tide; avalanche, mudflow, rockfall, landslide; fire caused by spontaneous combustion of peat, lightning and other natural factors; various types of lightning; blizzard or blizzard, as well as significant precipitation, especially in the form of large hail or unseasonal snow; drought; severe persistent frost or similar heat, especially in areas where these phenomena are unusual; soil erosion (such forms as the growth of ravines, wind erosion, washing out of the soil by rivers, showers, etc.), etc. The greatest harm is caused by floods (40% of the total damage), hurricanes (20%), earthquakes and droughts (15 each %). The remaining 10% of total damage comes from other types of natural disasters. About 60% of forests are constantly exposed to the threat of fires.
In 1991, the river basin suffered from the spring flood. Volga - the damage caused is estimated at 230-250 million rubles; heavy rains and showers caused significant damage to the Krasnodar Territory (500 million rubles), Chita Region. and Buryatia (600 million rubles), while 6 thousand people suffered, of which 30 died; 10 years later, the strongest flood of the river. Lena practically wiped out the city of Lensk, which had to be rebuilt; prolonged torrential rains with hail and river floods caused material damage (about 2 billion rubles) to the Stavropol Territory: residential buildings and agricultural buildings were damaged, 46 thousand hectares of grain were destroyed, 72 thousand hectares of other crops were damaged. As a result of the earthquake that occurred in Armenia at the end of 1988, 550 thousand people suffered, of which 25 thousand people died. 8 million m were lost 2 housing, 514 thousand people were left homeless. Communication with 121 post offices was disrupted, 50 automatic telephone exchanges and the public address system were put out of action. 170 industrial enterprises ceased to function, 102 km of sewer networks failed, water supply was disrupted in 11 settlements. Of the 965 settlements on the territory of the republic, 173 were affected, and 58 settlements were completely destroyed.
For example, only in 1991-92. 355 natural disasters were registered in Russia, as a result of which 7876 people were injured, of which 198 people died. For the period 1996-2000. only 204 large floods were registered, 536 large forest fires. Over the past 20 years, a total of more than 800 million people have suffered from natural disasters in the world (over 40 million people a year), about 140 thousand people died, and the annual material damage from natural disasters during this period amounted to at least 100 billion dollars. Losses from natural disasters over 10 years, in the period 1986-1995, were 8 times higher than in the 60s.
Sunlight under certain conditions acts as a negative abiotic factor. The pathogenic effect of radiant energy depends on the nature and intensity of the radiation. Rays in the visible part of the spectrum can cause temporary blindness; exposure to direct sunlight - overheating of the brain and sunstroke; exposure to the ultraviolet part of the spectrum of sunlight on the skin causes mainly a photochemical effect - increased skin pigmentation, but with prolonged exposure - burns of varying severity and even contributes to skin cancer.
With a significant decrease in atmospheric pressure (atmospheric air pressure), a mountain, or high-altitude, disease develops. In underwater sports, during diving and caisson work, sudden pressure drops can lead to rupture of the eardrum, lungs, and also to the development of shock (in case of vestibular shock, disorientation occurs instantly under water), caisson disease. Reduced or increased atmospheric pressure, as well as its fluctuations, negatively affect people suffering from diseases of the nervous system, hypotension or hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, mentally unstable. They are similarly affected by lunar and especially solar eclipses; magnetic storms and other manifestations of solar activity.
When exposed to low temperatures, frostbite and hypothermia can occur. As a result of prolonged exposure to high temperatures, heat stroke can occur - a pathological condition caused by overheating of the body.
The degree of severity of the influence of social and sociogenic factors on human health depends not only on their intensity and mutually combined action, but also on their combination with natural factors, for example, the weather and climate background.
The climate, as a long-term weather regime, has a serious, often negative impact on human well-being through temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, etc. with insects in the fields) in food) increases the incidence by about two times, with unfavorable - by 2.4 times, i.e. unfavorable natural and climatic conditions increase the harmful effects of sociogenic factors on the human body.
In large cities, the natural environment changes greatly. The intensity of solar radiation in cities is 15-20% lower than in the surrounding area, but the average annual temperature is higher here (by about 1.5 ° C), daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations are less significant, fogs occur more often, more precipitation (on average by 10%), below atmospheric pressure.
Changes in weather conditions often cause disturbances in cardiac activity, nervous disorders, a decrease in physical and mental performance, an exacerbation of diseases, an increase in the number of errors, accidents and even deaths. Weather changes affect people's well-being in different ways. In a healthy person, when the weather changes, the physiological processes in the body are timely adjusted to the changed environmental conditions. As a result, the protective reaction is enhanced and healthy people practically do not feel the negative effects of the weather. In a sick person, adaptive reactions are weakened, so the body loses the ability to quickly adapt. The influence of weather conditions on a person's well-being is also associated with age and individual susceptibility of the body.
TO biotic factorsinclude: microbiogenic - protozoa, viruses, microbes (actinomycetes, bacteria, rickettsia, etc.); phytogenic - plant organisms; zoogenic - animals.
The causative agents of infectious diseases have different resistance in the environment: some are able to live outside the human body for only a few hours - being in the air, in water, on various objects, they quickly die; others may live in the environment from a few days to several years; for others, the environment is a natural habitat; for the fourth - other organisms, such as wild animals, are a place of conservation and reproduction. One of the sources of infection is the soil, which is constantly inhabited by pathogens of tetanus, botulism, gas gangrene, and some fungal diseases. They can enter the human body if the skin is damaged, with unwashed food, or if the rules of hygiene are violated.
Phytogenic factors can have a negative impact on a person, as a direct one - poisonous and pathogenic plants (eaten white toadstool or henbane seeds, evaporation of burning bush, etc.); pollen of a number of plants, causing an allergic reaction of the body; and indirect (weeds in the fields, etc.).
However, unlike t.s. phytopathogenic factors, which act mostly as an object of human activity, zoogenic (i.e. zoopathogenic) act as subjects of human impact, for example, migration of insects (locusts, ants, etc.), rodents (mice, lemmings, etc.). d.); attacks of predators (sharks, wolves, etc.); bites of poisonous arthropods (wasps, bees, spiders, scorpions, etc.); poisonous injections of some representatives of the marine fauna (sea cat, sea urchin, sea scorpion); many impacts are provoked by inadequate human behavior (bites of poisonous snakes, excesses with pets, etc.).
It is necessary to display another group of factors affecting human health that are not environmental, but, nevertheless, affect health - this is a group of endogenous (internal) factors: heredity; immunological reactivity; structural and functional homeostasis; the impact of pregnancy and childbirth on the development of the child; physical development and fitness; intrinsic motivation for a healthy lifestyle, etc.
CONCLUSION
The beginning of the third millennium is characterized by a trend that the global human ecosystem is in danger due to a serious imbalance between the negative impact of the transformative - creative or destructive activity of society and the lack of an adequate, adapted or compensated reaction of the objects of such activity, be it nature or society itself. This process, as the main "man-made" cause of environmental and social disasters, requires analytical and prognostic research for its potential regulation and prevention of especially negative consequences.
The Global Environment Outlook 2000 has identified the following global and regional trends that are most likely to be expected in the next century:
– environmental disasters, both natural and artificial (provoked by human activities). They become more frequent, severe, accompanied by heavy economic losses;
– urbanization. Soon half of the population will live in cities, and where this process is not controlled or poorly organized, big environmental problems are created, primarily related to the sale of garbage and the spread of chronic diseases;
- chemization. Modern chemical pollution is seen as a bigger problem than old poisons like lead and others; and protective measures against them should be developed; overload with nitrate fertilizers, the consequences of which are not yet fully understood;
- the specter of a global water crisis, the growing problem of insufficient fresh water supply, especially for low-income populations;
- degradation of coastal zones. The exploitation of natural resources destroys coastal ecosystems and poses a greater threat than sewage;
- pollution by biological species. Deliberate introduction of foreign biological spices that overwhelm native species;
- climatic fluctuations. Over the past 20 years, there has been an increase in temperature on the surface of the earth and it remains to be seen whether this is a harbinger of any new economic transformations;
– degradation of land (land), increasing sensitivity, vulnerability of land to water erosion;
– environmental impact of refugees, etc.
At present, a significant part of human diseases is associated with the deterioration of the ecological situation in the environment: pollution of the atmosphere, water and soil, poor-quality food, increased noise, etc. This suggests that adaptation (deterministic adaptation to objective negative influences that cannot be eliminated or changed immediately) is still far from optimal, allowing it to function at the level of maximum health potentials genotypically and phenotypically inherent in the individual.
LITERATURE
Bannikov A. G., Vakulin A. A., Rustamov A. K. Fundamentals of ecology and environmental protection. – M.: Kolos, 1999. – 304 p.
Safety of technological processes and production (labor protection). - M.: Higher School, 2001. - 318 p.
Belov S.V. Life safety is the science of survival in the technosphere. – M.: MGTU, 1996. – 143 p.
Berdus M. G., Chuvilin V. V. Physical culture and ecology / Ecology of man and technology / Ed. A. S. Grinin. - Kaluga: Publishing house "Oblizdat", 1999. - 474 p. - S. 62-131.
Vandenko A. Sergei Shoigu: “Lensk is not a Potemkin village” // Arguments and Facts. - 2001. - No. 35. - S. 3, 15.
Losev A. V., Provadkin G. G. Social ecology. – M.: VLADOS, 1998. – 312 p.
Kaznacheev V.P., Preobrazhensky V.S. Human Ecology // Sat. scientific tr. – M.: Nauka, 1988.
Krakovsky A.I., Mukaevyan S.P., Romanov G.I. In defense of the environment. - M., 1991.
Kuchma V. R., Gildenskiold S. R. Environment and health of residents of a city with a developed chemical industry. M., 1995. - 123 p.
International data file // IAEA Bulletin. - 1997. - v. 39, No. 1 - P.44.
Moiseev N. N. Ecology and education. – M.: UNISAM, 1996.– 190 p.
National Environmental Action Plan / Eurasia, No. 5 (22), 1994.
Odum Y. Ecology: In 2. – M.: Mir, 1986.
Omnogenic ecology / Ed. A. S. Grinina In 4 volumes. - Kaluga: State Unitary Enterprise "Oblizdat", 1996 - 1998.
Environmental Protection: Textbook for tech. specialist. universities / Ed. S. V. Belova. - M .: Higher. school, 1991 - 319 p.
Reimers N. F. Ecology (theories, laws, rules, principles and hypotheses). - M .: "Young Russia", 1994. - 464 p.
Skufin KV Ecology of conservation of nature. Tutorial. - Voronezh, 1986.
Suravegina I. T., Senkevich V. M. Ecology and the world: A methodological guide for teachers. - M.: New School, 1994. - 126 p.
Ecology, health and lifestyle. - St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1996. - 173 p.
Ecology, nature conservation and environmental safety: Textbook / ed. V. I. Danilov-Danilyana. - M.: Publishing house of MNEPU, 1997. - 744 p.
Ecology: Textbook. - M.: Knowledge, 1997. - 288 p.
Berdus M. G. Sports-ecological education and ecology of sports / Modern Olympic sports and sports for all. – Warsaw, 2002.
Global Environment Outlook 2000.unep human Test work >> Ecology
The environment influences health human. FACTORS AFFECTING HEALTH HUMAN We have already determined that... the spectrum factors environment - from environmental to social. Indicative contribution of various factors V health population...
Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution
higher professional education
"Russian State Vocational Pedagogical
university"
Faculty of Physical Education
Department of Physical Education
Abstract on the discipline "Physical culture"
on the topic of:
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AND THEIR IMPACT ON HEALTH
Completed by: Kochetova V.A.
Checked:
Yekaterinburg 2015
PLAN-TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Environmental factors
2. The impact of environmental factors on the body
5.2. The effect of vibration on a person
6. Biological pollution
7. Nutrition
9. The results of the impact of environmental factors on the human body.
10. Landscape as a health factor
11. Problems of human adaptation to the environment conclusion
List of used literature
INTRODUCTION
Starting to consider the issues of the influence of environmental factors on the health of the population, it is necessary to dwell on the concepts: ecology and health.
Recently, the word "ecology" is most often used, speaking about the unfavorable state of the nature around us.
The term ecology is derived from two Greek words (oikos home, dwelling, homeland, and logos science), literally "science of habitat". In a more general sense, ecology is a science that studies the relationship of organisms and their communities with their environment (including the diversity of their relationships with other organisms and communities).
A community or population (from Latin populus people, population) cannot exist in isolation from the environment, since the relationship of populations is carried out through elements of inanimate nature or is highly dependent on it.
The natural living space occupied by the community forms an ecological system, and the totality of ecosystems forms the biosphere.
All processes in the biosphere are interconnected. Mankind is only a small part of the biosphere, and man is only one of the types of organic life. Reason singled out man from the animal world and gave him great power. For centuries, man has sought not to adapt to the natural environment, but to make it convenient for his existence. This desire became especially acute after the consequences of unreasonable economic activity, leading to the destruction of the natural environment, became obvious.
Starting to consider the issues of the influence of environmental factors on the health of the population, it is necessary to dwell on the concept of health.
According to the WHO (World Health Organization) definition, health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Relevance of the topic: the impact of environmental factors has led to significant changes in the health indicators of the population, which consist in the fact that new patterns are observed in the distribution and nature of human pathology, otherwise demographic processes proceed.
The purpose of the study: to determine the dependence of the state of human health on environmental factors.
Research objectives:
The study of factors affecting human health;
Consideration of the results of the impact of these factors on the human body.
1. ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS.
Environmental factors properties of the environment that have any effect on the body. Indifferent elements of the environment, for example, inert gases, are not environmental factors.
Environmental factors are highly variable in time and space. For example, temperatures vary greatly on the surface of the land, but are almost constant at the bottom of the ocean or in the depths of caves.
One and the same environmental factor has a different meaning in the life of cohabiting organisms. For example, the salt regime of the soil plays a primary role in the mineral nutrition of plants, but is indifferent to most land animals. The intensity of illumination and the spectral composition of light are extremely important in the life of phototrophic organisms (most plants and photosynthetic bacteria), while in the life of heterotrophic organisms (fungi, animals, a significant part of microorganisms), light does not have a noticeable effect on life.
2. IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS ON THE BODY
The structure of the environment can be conditionally divided into natural (mechanical, physical, chemical and biological) and social elements of the environment (work, life, socio-economic structure, information). The conditionality of such a division is explained by the fact that natural factors act on a person in certain social conditions and are often significantly changed as a result of the production and economic activities of people.
The properties of environmental factors determine the specifics of the impact on a person. Natural elements influence their physical properties: hypobaria, hypoxia; strengthening of the wind regime, solar and ultraviolet radiation; changes in ionizing radiation, electrostatic voltage of air and its ionization; fluctuations of electromagnetic and gravitational fields; increased climate rigidity with altitude and geographic location, precipitation dynamics; frequency and variety of natural phenomena.
Natural geochemical factors affect a person by anomalies in the qualitative and quantitative ratio of microelements in soil, water, air, and, consequently, a decrease in diversity and anomalies in the ratios of chemical elements in agricultural products of local production. The action of natural biological factors is manifested in changes in macrofauna, flora and microorganisms, the presence of endemic foci of animal and plant diseases, as well as in the emergence of new allergens of natural origin.
The group of social factors also has certain properties that can affect living conditions and health status. So, if we talk about the influence of working conditions, then the following groups of factors that form these conditions should be distinguished: socio-economic, technical, organizational and natural.
The first group of factors is decisive and is determined by industrial relations. This includes legal and regulatory factors (Labor Law, rules, norms, standards and practice of state and public control over their observance); socio-psychological factors that can be characterized by the employee's attitude to work, specialty and its prestige, the psychological climate in the team; economic factors, such as material incentives, a system of benefits and compensation for work in adverse conditions.
The second group of factors has a direct impact on the creation of material elements of working conditions. These are means, objects and tools of labor, technological processes, organization of production, applied modes of work and rest.
The third group of factors characterizes the impact on workers of the climatic, geological and biological features of the area where the work takes place. In real conditions, this complex set of factors that shape working conditions is united by diverse mutual relationships.
Life has an impact through housing, clothing, food, water supply, the development of the infrastructure of the service sector, the provision of recreation and the conditions for its implementation, etc. The socio-economic structure affects a person through the social and legal status, material security, level of culture, education. Information impact is determined by the volume of information, its quality, accessibility to perception.
The above structure of factors that shape the environment clearly shows that a change in the levels of exposure to any of the listed factors can lead to health problems. In addition, the simultaneous change in several factors of a natural nature or social environment at once, the difficulty in determining the relationship of a disease with a specific factor are also due to the fact that the formation of one of the three functional states of the body from the point of view of the theory of functional systems, i.e. normal, borderline or pathological, can be masked.
The human body can react in the same way to a variety of influences. Similar in severity changes in the state of the body can be caused in one case by the action of harmful, most often anthropogenic environmental factors, in another case such a factor is excessive physical or mental stress, in the third case, lack of motor activity with increased neuro-emotional stress. Moreover, depending on the specific conditions, factors can have an isolated, combined, complex or joint effect on the body.
Under the combined action understand the simultaneous or sequential action on the body of factors of the same nature, for example, several chemicals with the same route of entry (with air, water, food, etc.).
A complex action is manifested with the simultaneous intake of the same chemical substance into the body in various ways (from water, air, food products).
A joint action is observed with simultaneous or sequential action on the human body of factors of various nature (physical, chemical, biological).
Finally, we must remember that in the development of pathological processes in the body, various environmental pollutions can play the role of risk factors, which are understood as factors that are not the direct cause of a particular disease, but which increase the likelihood of its occurrence.
The influence of factors also depends on the state of the organism, therefore they have an unequal effect both on different species and on one organism at different stages of its development: low temperatures are tolerated without harm by adult conifers of the temperate zone, but are dangerous for young plants.
Factors can partially replace each other: with a decrease in illumination, the intensity of photosynthesis will not change if the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air is increased, which usually happens in greenhouses.
Environmental factors can act as irritants that cause adaptive changes in physiological functions; as constraints that make it impossible for certain organisms to exist under given conditions; as modifiers that determine morpho-anatomical and physiological changes in organisms.
Organisms are affected not by static unchanging factors, but by their regimes - a sequence of changes over a certain time.
3. Technogenic factors and environmental pollution affecting public health
It should be taken into account that pollution is understood as such a state when a pollutant in an environmental object is in quantities exceeding the MPC, and can have an adverse effect on human health and sanitary and living conditions. According to the UN definition, pollution refers to exogenous chemicals found in the wrong place, at the wrong time and in the wrong amount.
The main man-made factors that have a negative impact on health are chemical and physical.
4. Chemical pollution of the environment and human health
Currently, human economic activity is increasingly becoming the main source of pollution of the biosphere. Gaseous, liquid and solid industrial wastes enter the natural environment in increasing quantities. Various chemicals in the waste, getting into the soil, air or water, pass through the ecological links from one chain to another, eventually getting into the human body.
It is almost impossible to find a place on the globe where pollutants would not be present, in one concentration or another. Even in the ice of Antarctica, where there are no industrial facilities, and people live only at small scientific stations, scientists have discovered various toxic (poisonous) substances of modern industries. They are brought here by atmospheric flows from other continents.
Substances polluting the natural environment are very diverse. Depending on their nature, concentration, time of action on the human body, they can cause various adverse effects. Short-term exposure to small concentrations of such substances can cause dizziness, nausea, sore throat, cough. The ingestion of large concentrations of toxic substances into the human body can lead to loss of consciousness, acute poisoning and even death. An example of such an action can be smog formed in large cities in calm weather, or accidental releases of toxic substances into the atmosphere by industrial enterprises.
The body's reactions to pollution depend on individual characteristics: age, gender, health status. As a rule, children, the elderly and sick people are more vulnerable.
With a systematic or periodic intake of relatively small amounts of toxic substances into the body, chronic poisoning occurs.
In chronic poisoning, the same substances in different people can cause various damage to the kidneys, blood-forming organs, nervous system, and liver.
Similar signs are observed in radioactive contamination of the environment.
Biologically highly active chemical compounds can cause a long-term effect on human health: chronic inflammatory diseases of various organs, changes in the nervous system, an effect on the intrauterine development of the fetus, leading to various abnormalities in newborns.
Doctors have established a direct link between the increase in the number of people suffering from allergies, bronchial asthma, cancer, and the deterioration of the environmental situation in a particular region. It has been reliably established that such production wastes as chromium, nickel, beryllium, asbestos, and many pesticides are carcinogens, that is, they cause cancer. Back in the last century, cancer in children was almost unknown, but now it is becoming more and more common. As a result of pollution, new, previously unknown diseases appear. Their reasons can be very difficult to establish.
Smoking causes great harm to human health. A smoker not only inhales harmful substances himself, but also pollutes the atmosphere and endangers other people. It has been established that people who are in the same room with a smoker inhale even more harmful substances than he himself.
5. Physical pollution of the environment
The main physical environmental factors that have a negative impact on human health include noise, vibration, electromagnetic radiation, and electric current.
5.1. The effect of sound on a person
Man has always lived in a world of sounds and noise. Sound is called such mechanical vibrations of the external environment, which are perceived by the human hearing aid (from 16 to 20,000 vibrations per second). Vibrations of a higher frequency are called ultrasound, and those of a lower frequency are called infrasound. Noise loud sounds that have merged into a discordant sound.
In nature, loud sounds are rare, the noise is relatively weak and short. The combination of sound stimuli gives animals and humans time to assess their nature and form a response. Sounds and noises of high power affect the hearing aid, nerve centers, can cause pain and shock. This is how noise pollution works.
The quiet rustle of leaves, the murmur of a stream, bird voices, a light splash of water and the sound of the surf are always pleasant to a person. They calm him, relieve stress. But the natural sounds of the voices of Nature are becoming more and more rare, they disappear completely or are drowned out by industrial traffic and other noises.
Prolonged noise adversely affects the organ of hearing, reducing the sensitivity to sound.
It leads to a breakdown in the activity of the heart, liver, to exhaustion and overstrain of nerve cells. Weakened cells of the nervous system cannot clearly coordinate the work of various body systems. This results in disruption of their activities.
The noise level is measured in units expressing the degree of sound pressure - decibels. This pressure is not perceived indefinitely. The noise level of 20-30 decibels (dB) is practically harmless to humans, this is a natural background noise. As for loud sounds, here the permissible limit is approximately 80 decibels. A sound of 130 decibels already causes a painful sensation in a person, and 150 becomes unbearable for him.
The level of industrial noise is also very high. In many jobs and noisy industries, it reaches 90-110 decibels or more. Our houses are not much quieter either, where more and more new sources of noise appear - the so-called household appliances.
Currently, scientists in many countries of the world are conducting various studies to determine the impact of noise on human health. Their studies have shown that noise causes significant harm to human health, but absolute silence frightens and depresses him. Conversely, scientists have found that sounds of a certain intensity stimulate the process of thinking, especially the process of counting.
Each person perceives noise differently. Much depends on age, temperament, state of health, environmental conditions.
Some people lose their hearing even after brief exposure to noise of comparatively reduced intensity.
Constant exposure to loud noise can not only adversely affect hearing, but also cause other harmful effects ringing in the ears, dizziness, headache, increased fatigue.
Very noisy modern music also dulls the hearing, causes nervous diseases.
Noise has an accumulative effect, that is, acoustic irritation, accumulating in the body, increasingly depresses the nervous system.
Therefore, before hearing loss from exposure to noise, a functional disorder of the central nervous system occurs. Noise has a particularly harmful effect on the neuropsychic activity of the body.
The process of neuropsychiatric diseases is higher among persons working in noisy conditions than among persons working in normal sound conditions.
Noises cause functional disorders of the cardiovascular system; have a harmful effect on the visual and vestibular analyzers, reduces reflex activity, which often causes accidents and injuries.
Studies have shown that inaudible sounds can also have a harmful effect on human health. So, infrasounds have a special effect on the mental sphere of a person: all types of intellectual activity are affected, mood worsens, sometimes there is a feeling of confusion, anxiety, fright, fear, and at high intensity, a feeling of weakness, as after a strong nervous shock.
Even weak sounds of infrasound can have a significant impact on a person, especially if they are of a long-term nature. According to scientists, it is precisely by infrasounds, inaudibly penetrating through the thickest walls, that many nervous diseases of the inhabitants of large cities are caused.
Ultrasounds, which occupy a prominent place in the range of industrial noise, are also dangerous. The mechanisms of their action on living organisms are extremely diverse. The cells of the nervous system are especially susceptible to their negative effects.
5.2. The effect of vibration on a person.
Vibration is a complex oscillatory process with a wide range of frequencies, resulting from the transfer of vibrational energy from some kind of mechanical source. In cities, vibration sources are primarily transport, as well as some industries. On the latter, prolonged exposure to vibration can cause the occurrence of an occupational disease - a vibrational disease, which is expressed in changes in the vessels of the extremities, the neuromuscular and osteoarticular apparatus.
5.3. The influence of electromagnetic radiation on humans
Sources of electromagnetic radiation are radar, radio and television stations, various industrial installations, devices, including household ones.
Systematic exposure to the electromagnetic field of radio waves with levels exceeding the permissible levels can cause changes in the central nervous system, cardiovascular, endocrine and other systems of the human body.
5.4. The influence of the electric field on a person
The electric field to a large extent has a harmful effect on humans. There are three levels of impact:
direct impact, manifested when staying in an electric field; the effect of this exposure increases with increasing field strength and time spent in it;
impact of impulse discharges (pulse current) arising from a person touching structures isolated from the ground, bodies of machines and mechanisms on a pneumatic course and extended conductors or when a person, isolated from the earth, touches plants, grounded structures and other grounded objects;
the impact of the current passing through a person who is in contact with objects isolated from the ground - large-sized objects, machines and mechanisms, extended conductors.
6. Biological pollution.
In addition to chemical pollutants, biological pollutants are also found in the natural environment, causing various diseases in humans. These are pathogens, viruses, helminths, protozoa. They can be in the atmosphere, water, soil, in the body of other living organisms, including in the person himself.
The most dangerous pathogens of infectious diseases. They have different stability in the environment. Some are able to live outside the human body for only a few hours; being in the air, in water, on various objects, they quickly die. Others may live in the environment from a few days to several years. For others, the environment is a natural habitat. For the fourth - other organisms, such as wild animals, are a place of conservation and reproduction.
Often the source of infection is the soil, which is constantly inhabited by pathogens of tetanus, botulism, gas gangrene, and some fungal diseases. They can enter the human body if the skin is damaged, with unwashed food, or if the rules of hygiene are violated.
Pathogenic microorganisms can penetrate the groundwater and cause human infectious diseases. Therefore, water from artesian wells, wells, springs must be boiled before drinking.
Open water sources are especially polluted: rivers, lakes, ponds. Numerous cases are known when contaminated water sources caused epidemics of cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery.
With an airborne infection, infection occurs through the respiratory tract when air containing pathogens is inhaled.
Such diseases include influenza, whooping cough, mumps, diphtheria, measles and others. The causative agents of these diseases get into the air when coughing, sneezing, and even when sick people talk.
A special group is made up of infectious diseases transmitted by close contact with the patient or by using his things, for example, a towel, a handkerchief, personal hygiene items and others that were used by the patient. These include venereal diseases (AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea), trachoma, anthrax, scab. A person, invading nature, often violates the natural conditions for the existence of pathogens and himself becomes a victim of natural focal diseases (plague, tularemia, typhus, tick-borne encephalitis, malaria).
In some hot countries, as well as in a number of regions of our country, the infectious disease leptospirosis, or water fever, occurs. In our country, the causative agent of this disease lives in the organisms of common voles, widely distributed in meadows near rivers. The disease of leptospirosis is seasonal, more common during periods of heavy rains and during the hot months. A person can become infected when water contaminated with rodent secretions enters his body.
7. Nutrition
The source of building materials and energy necessary for the body are nutrients that come from the external environment, mainly with food. If food does not enter the body, a person feels hungry. But hunger, unfortunately, will not tell you what nutrients and in what quantity a person needs.
A complete balanced diet is an important condition for maintaining the health and high performance of adults, and for children it is also a necessary condition for growth and development.
For normal growth, development and maintenance of life, the body needs proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and mineral salts in the right amount.
Irrational nutrition is one of the main causes of cardiovascular diseases, diseases of the digestive system, diseases associated with metabolic disorders.
Regular overeating, consumption of excessive amounts of carbohydrates and fats is the cause of the development of metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
They cause damage to the cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive and other systems, sharply reduce the ability to work and resistance to diseases, reducing life expectancy by an average of 8-10 years.
Rational nutrition is the most important indispensable condition for the prevention of not only metabolic diseases, but also many others.
The nutritional factor plays an important role not only in the prevention, but also in the treatment of many diseases. Specially organized nutrition, the so-called medical nutrition, is a prerequisite for the treatment of many diseases, including metabolic and gastrointestinal diseases.
Medicinal substances of synthetic origin, unlike food substances, are alien to the body. Many of them can cause adverse reactions, such as allergies, so when treating patients, preference should be given to the nutritional factor.
In products, many biologically active substances are found in equal, and sometimes in higher concentrations than in the drugs used. That is why, since ancient times, many products, primarily vegetables, fruits, seeds, herbs, have been used in the treatment of various diseases.
Many food products have bactericidal action, inhibiting the growth and development of various microorganisms. So, apple juice delays the development of staphylococcus, pomegranate juice inhibits the growth of salmonella, cranberry juice is active against various intestinal, putrefactive and other microorganisms. Everyone knows the antimicrobial properties of onions, garlic and other foods. Unfortunately, all this rich medical arsenal is not often used in practice.
A new danger has emerged - chemical contamination of food, which occurs if crops are grown with the use of large amounts of fertilizers and pesticides. Such agricultural products can have not only poor taste, but also be hazardous to health.
Plants are able to accumulate in themselves almost all harmful substances. That is why agricultural products grown near industrial enterprises and major highways are especially dangerous.
A new concept has also appeared - environmentally friendly products.
8. Weather, rhythmic processes in nature
In any natural phenomenon that surrounds us, there is a strict repetition of processes: day and night, high and low tide, winter and summer.
Rhythm is observed not only in the motion of the Earth, Sun, Moon and stars, but is also an integral and universal property of living matter, a property penetrating into all life phenomena - from the molecular level to the level of the whole organism.
Currently, there are many rhythmic processes in the body, called biorhythms. These include the rhythms of the heart, breathing, bioelectrical activity of the brain. Our whole life is a constant change of rest and activity, sleep and wakefulness, fatigue from hard work and rest.
The central place among all rhythmic processes is occupied by circadian rhythms, which are of the greatest importance for the organism. The reaction of the body to any impact depends on the phase of the circadian rhythm (that is, on the time of day).
This knowledge made it possible to reveal that the same drug at different times of the day has different, sometimes directly opposite, effects on the body. Therefore, in order to obtain a greater effect, it is important to indicate not only the dose, but also the exact time of taking the medication.
The climate also has a serious impact on the well-being of a person, affecting him through weather factors.
So far, it has not yet been possible to fully establish the mechanisms of the reactions of the human body to changing weather conditions. And she often makes herself felt by violations of cardiac activity, nervous disorders. With a sharp change in the weather, physical and mental performance decreases, diseases become aggravated, the number of errors, accidents and even deaths increases.
Most of the physical factors of the environment, in interaction with which the human body has evolved, are of an electromagnetic nature.
It is well known that near fast-flowing water, the air is refreshing and invigorating. It contains many negative ions. For the same reason, it seems to us clean and refreshing air after a thunderstorm.
On the contrary, the air in cramped rooms with an abundance of various kinds of electromagnetic devices is saturated with positive ions. Even a relatively short stay in such a room leads to lethargy, drowsiness, dizziness and headaches. A similar picture is observed in windy weather, on dusty and humid days. Experts in the field of environmental medicine believe that negative ions have a positive effect on health, while positive ions have a negative effect.
At the same time, in a healthy person, when the weather changes, the physiological processes in the body are timely adjusted to the changed environmental conditions. As a result, the protective reaction is enhanced and healthy people practically do not feel the negative effects of the weather.
In a sick person, adaptive reactions are weakened, so the body loses the ability to quickly adapt. The influence of weather conditions on a person's well-being is also associated with age and individual susceptibility of the body.
9. Results of the impact of environmental factors on the human body.
The result of the influence of factors depends on the duration and frequency of their extreme values throughout the life of the organism and its descendants: short-term effects may not have any consequences, while long-term effects through the mechanism of natural selection lead to qualitative changes.
Features of the impact of environmental factors have led to significant changes in the health indicators of the population, which consist in the fact that new patterns are observed in the prevalence and nature of human pathology, otherwise demographic processes proceed.
The changing environment and the wrong attitude to one's health have a significant impact on the change in health indicators. According to some data, up to 77% of all cases of diseases and more than 50% of deaths, as well as up to 57% of cases of abnormal physical development are associated with the action of these factors.
10. Landscape as a health factor.
A person always strives to the forest, to the mountains, to the seashore, river or lake.
Here he feels a surge of strength, vivacity. No wonder they say that it is best to relax in the bosom of nature. Sanatoriums and rest houses are built in the most beautiful corners. This is not an accident. It turns out that the surrounding landscape can have a different effect on the psycho-emotional state. Contemplation of the beauties of nature stimulates vitality and calms the nervous system. Plant biocenoses, especially forests, have a strong healing effect.
The craving for natural landscapes is especially strong among the inhabitants of the city.
In cities, a person comes up with thousands of tricks for the convenience of his life - hot water, telephone, various modes of transport, roads, services and entertainment. However, in large cities, the shortcomings of life are especially pronounced - housing and transport problems, an increase in the level of morbidity. To a certain extent, this is due to the simultaneous impact on the body of two, three or more harmful factors, each of which has an insignificant effect, but in the aggregate leads to serious troubles for people.
So, for example, saturation of the environment and production with high-speed and high-speed machines increases stress, requires additional efforts from a person, which leads to overwork. It is well known that an overworked person suffers more from the effects of air pollution, infections.
Polluted air in the city, poisoning the blood with carbon monoxide, causes the same harm to a non-smoker as a smoker smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. A serious negative factor in modern cities is the so-called noise pollution.
Given the ability of green spaces to favorably influence the state of the environment, they must be as close as possible to the place of life, work, study and recreation of people.
It is very important that the city be, if not absolutely favorable, but at least not harmful to people's health. Let there be a zone of life. To do this, it is necessary to solve a lot of urban problems. All enterprises that are unfavorable in sanitary terms must be withdrawn from the cities.
Green spaces are an integral part of a set of measures to protect and transform the environment. They not only create favorable microclimatic and sanitary and hygienic conditions, but also increase the artistic expressiveness of architectural ensembles.
A special place around industrial enterprises and highways should be occupied by protective green areas, in which it is recommended to plant trees and shrubs that are resistant to pollution.
The most important components of the urban greening system are plantations in residential areas, on the sites of children's institutions, schools, sports complexes, etc.
The modern city should be considered as an ecosystem in which the most favorable conditions for human life are created. Consequently, these are not only comfortable dwellings, transport, and a diverse service sector. This is a habitat favorable for life and health; clean air and green urban landscape.
It is no coincidence that ecologists believe that in a modern city a person should not be divorced from nature, but, as it were, dissolved in it. Therefore, the total area of green spaces in cities should occupy more than half of its territory.
11. Problems of human adaptation to the environment
In the history of our planet, grandiose processes on a planetary scale have continuously taken place and are taking place, transforming the face of the Earth. With the advent of a powerful factor - the human mind - a qualitatively new stage in the evolution of the organic world began. Due to the global nature of human interaction with the environment, it becomes the largest geological force.
The specificity of the human environment lies in the most complex interweaving of social and natural factors. At the dawn of human history, natural factors played a decisive role in human evolution. The impact of natural factors on a modern person is largely neutralized by social factors. In new natural and industrial conditions, a person at present often experiences the influence of very unusual, and sometimes excessive and harsh environmental factors, for which he is not yet evolutionarily ready.
Man, like other types of living organisms, is able to adapt, that is, adapt to environmental conditions. Human adaptation to new natural and industrial conditions can be characterized as a set of socio-biological properties and characteristics necessary for the sustainable existence of an organism in a particular ecological environment.
Adapting to adverse environmental conditions, the human body experiences a state of tension, fatigue. Tension is the mobilization of all mechanisms that ensure certain activities of the human body. Depending on the magnitude of the load, the degree of preparation of the organism, its functional, structural and energy resources, the possibility of the organism functioning at a given level decreases, that is, fatigue occurs.
The ability to adapt to new conditions is not the same for different people. So, many people during long-haul flights with a quick crossing of several time zones, as well as during shift work, experience such adverse symptoms as sleep disturbance, and performance decreases. Others adapt quickly.
Among people, two extreme adaptive types of a person can be distinguished. The first of them is the sprinter, which is characterized by high resistance to short-term extreme factors and poor tolerance to long-term loads. Reverse type - stayer.
CONCLUSION.
The fate of nature and society, of all mankind, of our planet should excite everyone. Indifference and irresponsibility can lead to unpredictable and irreversible consequences. The earth is our home, and everyone is responsible for its safety.
The duty of science and society is to stop the process of deterioration of the biosphere, to restore nature's ability to self-regulate based on natural processes.
LIST OF USED LITERATURE.
V.F. Protasov, A.V. Molchanov. Ecology, health and environmental management in Russia. M.: Finance and statistics, 1995.
E.A. Kriksunov, V.V. Pasechnik. Ecology. M.: Bustard, 2007.
E.A.Rustamov. Nature management. M.: Publishing house "Dashkov and K", 2000.
A.M. Prokhorov. Soviet encyclopedic dictionary. M.: "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1988.
State educational institution of higher professional education
Department of "Engineering Ecology"
ABSTRACT
Topic: "Influence of environmental factors on humans"
Completed:
Checked:
2008
Content
1.Introduction……………………………………………………………………..3
2. The impact of environmental factors on humans……………………….5
3. Chemical pollution of the environment and human health……………………5
4.Man and radiation…………………………………………………………….7
5. Biological pollution and human diseases………………………….10
6. The influence of sounds on a person………………………………………………….12
7. Weather and human well-being………………………………………….15
8. Nutrition and human health……………………………………………...18
9. Landscape as a health factor……………………………………………21
10.Conclusion……………………………………………………………………25
11. List of references………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………29
Introduction
All processes in the biosphere are interconnected. Mankind is only an insignificant part of the biosphere, and man is only one of the types of organic life - Homo sapiens (reasonable man). Reason singled out man from the animal world and gave him great power. For centuries, man has sought not to adapt to the natural environment, but to make it convenient for his existence. Now we have realized that any human activity has an impact on the environment, and the deterioration of the biosphere is dangerous for all living beings, including humans. A comprehensive study of a person, his relationship with the outside world led to the understanding that health is not only the absence of disease, but also the physical, mental and social well-being of a person. Health is a capital given to us not only by nature from birth, but also by the conditions in which we live.
The influence of the environment on the body is called the environmental factor. The exact scientific definition is:
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTOR- any environmental condition to which the living reacts with adaptive reactions.
An environmental factor is any element of the environment that has a direct or indirect effect on living organisms at least during one of the phases of their development.
By their nature, environmental factors are divided into at least three groups:
abiotic factors - the influence of inanimate nature;
biotic factors - influences of living nature.
anthropogenic factors - influences caused by reasonable and unreasonable human activity ("anthropos" - a person).
Man modifies animate and inanimate nature, and in a certain sense takes on a geochemical role (for example, releasing carbon immured in the form of coal and oil for many millions of years and releasing it into the air with carbon dioxide). Therefore, anthropogenic factors in terms of scope and global impact are approaching geological forces.
Not infrequently, environmental factors are also subjected to a more detailed classification, when it is necessary to point to a particular group of factors. For example, there are climatic (relating to climate), edaphic (soil) environmental factors.
The impact of environmental factors on humans .
Chemical pollution of the environment and human health.
Currently, human economic activity is increasingly becoming the main source of pollution of the biosphere. Gaseous, liquid and solid industrial wastes enter the natural environment in increasing quantities. Various chemicals in the waste, getting into the soil, air or water, pass through the ecological links from one chain to another, eventually getting into the human body.
It is almost impossible to find a place on the globe where pollutants would not be present in one or another concentration. Even in the ice of Antarctica, where there are no industrial facilities, and people live only at small scientific stations, scientists have discovered various toxic (poisonous) substances of modern industries. They are brought here by atmospheric flows from other continents.
Substances polluting the natural environment are very diverse. Depending on their nature, concentration, time of action on the human body, they can cause various adverse effects. Short-term exposure to small concentrations of such substances can cause dizziness, nausea, sore throat, cough. The ingestion of large concentrations of toxic substances into the human body can lead to loss of consciousness, acute poisoning and even death. An example of such an action can be smog formed in large cities in calm weather, or accidental releases of toxic substances into the atmosphere by industrial enterprises.
The body's reactions to pollution depend on individual characteristics: age, gender, health status. As a rule, children, the elderly and sick people are more vulnerable.
With a systematic or periodic intake of relatively small amounts of toxic substances into the body, chronic poisoning occurs.
Signs of chronic poisoning are a violation of normal behavior, habits, as well as neuropsychic deviations: rapid fatigue or a feeling of constant fatigue, drowsiness or, conversely, insomnia, apathy, weakening of attention, absent-mindedness, forgetfulness, severe mood swings.
In chronic poisoning, the same substances in different people can cause various damage to the kidneys, blood-forming organs, nervous system, and liver.
Similar signs are observed in radioactive contamination of the environment.
Thus, in areas exposed to radioactive contamination as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, the incidence among the population, especially children, has increased many times over.
Biologically highly active chemical compounds can cause a long-term effect on human health: chronic inflammatory diseases of various organs, changes in the nervous system, an effect on the intrauterine development of the fetus, leading to various abnormalities in newborns.
Doctors have established a direct link between the increase in the number of people suffering from allergies, bronchial asthma, cancer, and the deterioration of the environmental situation in the region. It has been reliably established that such production wastes as chromium, nickel, beryllium, asbestos, and many pesticides are carcinogens, that is, they cause cancer. Back in the last century, cancer in children was almost unknown, but now it is becoming more and more common. As a result of pollution, new, previously unknown diseases appear. Their reasons can be very difficult to establish.
Smoking causes great harm to human health. A smoker not only inhales harmful substances himself, but also pollutes the atmosphere and endangers other people. It has been established that people who are in the same room with a smoker inhale even more harmful substances than he himself.
Man and radiation.
Radiation, by its very nature, is harmful to life. Small doses of radiation can “start” a not yet fully established chain of events leading to cancer or genetic damage. At high doses, radiation can destroy cells, damage organ tissues and cause the death of an organism.
Damage caused by high doses of radiation usually shows up within hours or days. Cancers, however, do not appear until many years after irradiation—usually not earlier than one to two decades. And congenital malformations and other hereditary diseases caused by damage to the genetic apparatus appear only in the next or subsequent generations: these are children, grandchildren and more distant descendants of an individual who has been exposed to radiation.
While it is not difficult to identify short-term (“acute”) effects from exposure to high doses of radiation, it is almost always very difficult to detect long-term effects from low doses of radiation. This is partly because they take a very long time to manifest. But even having discovered some effects, it is still necessary to prove that they are explained by the action of radiation, since both cancer and damage to the genetic apparatus can be caused not only by radiation, but also by many other reasons.
To cause acute damage to the body, radiation doses must exceed a certain level, but there is no reason to believe that this rule applies in the case of consequences such as cancer or damage to the genetic apparatus. At least theoretically, the smallest dose is sufficient for this. However, at the same time, no radiation dose produces these effects in all cases. Even with relatively high doses of radiation, not all people are doomed to these diseases: the reparation mechanisms operating in the human body usually eliminate all damage. In the same way, any person exposed to radiation does not necessarily have to develop cancer or become a carrier of hereditary diseases; however, the likelihood, or risk, of such consequences is greater than that of a person who has not been exposed. And this risk is greater, the greater the dose of radiation.
Acute damage to the human body occurs at high doses of radiation. Radiation has a similar effect only starting from a certain minimum, or "threshold", radiation dose.
A large amount of information has been obtained in the analysis of the results of the use of radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer. Many years of experience have allowed physicians to obtain extensive information about the response of human tissues to radiation. This reaction for different organs and tissues turned out to be unequal, and the differences are very large.
Of course, if the radiation dose is high enough, the exposed person will die. In any case, very high radiation doses of the order of 100 Gy cause such severe damage to the central nervous system that death, as a rule, occurs within a few hours or days. At radiation doses of 10 to 50 Gy for whole-body exposure, CNS damage may not be so severe as to be fatal, but the exposed person is likely to die anyway in one to two weeks from hemorrhages in the gastrointestinal tract. Even lower doses may not cause serious damage to the gastrointestinal tract, or the body can cope with them, and yet death can occur after one to two months from the time of exposure, mainly due to the destruction of red bone marrow cells, the main component of the body's hematopoietic system. : from a dose of 3-5 Gy during whole-body irradiation, about half of all exposed people die.
Thus, in this range of radiation doses, large doses differ from smaller ones only in that death occurs earlier in the first case, and later in the second. Of course, most often a person dies as a result of the simultaneous action of all these consequences of exposure.
Children are also extremely sensitive to the effects of radiation. Relatively small doses of irradiation of cartilage tissue can slow down or completely stop their bone growth, which leads to abnormalities in the development of the skeleton. The younger the child, the more bone growth is inhibited. A total dose of the order of 10 Gy received over a period of several weeks with daily irradiation is sufficient to cause some skeletal anomalies. Apparently, there is no threshold effect for such action of radiation. It also turned out that irradiating a child's brain during radiation therapy can cause changes in his character, lead to memory loss, and in very young children even to dementia and idiocy. The bones and brain of an adult are capable of withstanding much higher doses.
There are also genetic consequences of exposure. Their study is associated with even greater difficulties than in the case of cancer. First, very little is known about what damage occurs in the human genetic apparatus during irradiation; secondly, the full identification of all hereditary defects occurs only over many generations; and thirdly, as in the case of cancer, these defects cannot be distinguished from those that arose from quite different causes.
About 10% of all living newborns have some kind of genetic defect, ranging from mild physical defects such as color blindness to such serious conditions as Down's syndrome and various malformations. Many of the embryos and fetuses with severe hereditary disorders do not survive to birth; according to available data, about half of all cases of spontaneous abortion are associated with abnormalities in the genetic material. But even if children with hereditary defects are born alive, they are five times less likely to survive to their first birthday than normal children.
Biological pollution and human diseases
The effect of sounds on a person
Man has always lived in a world of sounds and noise. Sound is called such mechanical vibrations of the external environment, which are perceived by the human hearing aid (from 16 to 20,000 vibrations per second). Vibrations of a higher frequency are called ultrasound, a smaller one is called infrasound. Noise - loud sounds that have merged into a discordant sound.
For all living organisms, including humans, sound is one of the environmental influences.
In nature, loud sounds are rare, the noise is relatively weak and short. The combination of sound stimuli gives animals and humans time to assess their nature and form a response. Sounds and noises of high power affect the hearing aid, nerve centers, can cause pain and shock. This is how noise pollution works.
The quiet rustle of leaves, the murmur of a stream, bird voices, a light splash of water and the sound of the surf are always pleasant to a person. They calm him, relieve stress. But the natural sounds of the voices of Nature are becoming more and more rare, they disappear completely or are drowned out by industrial traffic and other noises.
Prolonged noise adversely affects the organ of hearing, reducing the sensitivity to sound.
It leads to a breakdown in the activity of the heart, liver, to exhaustion and overstrain of nerve cells. Weakened cells of the nervous system cannot clearly coordinate the work of various body systems. This results in disruption of their activities.
The noise level is measured in units expressing the degree of sound pressure - decibels. This pressure is not perceived indefinitely. The noise level of 20-30 decibels (dB) is practically harmless to humans, this is a natural background noise. As for loud sounds, here the permissible limit is approximately 80 decibels. The sound of 130 decibels already causes
a person feels pain, and 150 becomes unbearable for him. Not without reason in the Middle Ages there was an execution “under the bell”. The hum of the bell ringing tormented and slowly killed the convict.
The level of industrial noise is also very high. In many jobs and noisy industries, it reaches 90-110 decibels or more. Not much quieter in our house, where new sources of noise appear - the so-called household appliances.
For a long time, the effect of noise on the human body was not specially studied, although already in ancient times they knew about its harm and, for example, in ancient cities, rules were introduced to limit noise.
Currently, scientists in many countries of the world are conducting various studies to determine the impact of noise on human health. Their studies have shown that noise causes significant harm to human health, but absolute silence frightens and depresses him. So, employees of one design bureau, which had excellent sound insulation, already a week later began to complain about the impossibility of working in conditions of oppressive silence. They were nervous, lost their working capacity. Conversely, scientists have found that sounds of a certain intensity stimulate the process of thinking, especially the process of counting.
Each person perceives noise differently. Much depends on age, temperament, state of health, environmental conditions.
Some people lose their hearing even after brief exposure to noise of comparatively reduced intensity.
Constant exposure to strong noise can not only adversely affect hearing, but also cause other harmful effects - ringing in the ears, dizziness, headache, increased fatigue.
Very noisy modern music also dulls the hearing, causes nervous diseases.
Noise has an accumulative effect, that is, acoustic irritation, accumulating in the body, increasingly depresses the nervous system.
Therefore, before hearing loss from exposure to noise, a functional disorder of the central nervous system occurs. Noise has a particularly harmful effect on the neuropsychic activity of the body.
The process of neuropsychiatric diseases is higher among persons working in noisy conditions than among persons working in normal sound conditions.
Noises cause functional disorders of the cardiovascular system; have a harmful effect on the visual and vestibular analyzers, reduces reflex activity, which often causes accidents and injuries.
Studies have shown that inaudible sounds can also have a harmful effect on human health. So, infrasounds have a special effect on the mental sphere of a person: all types of
intellectual activity, mood worsens, sometimes there is a feeling of confusion, anxiety, fright, fear, and at high intensity
feeling of weakness, as after a great nervous shock.
Even weak sounds of infrasound can have a significant impact on a person, especially if they are of a long-term nature. According to scientists, it is precisely by infrasounds, inaudibly penetrating through the thickest walls, that many nervous diseases of the inhabitants of large cities are caused.
Ultrasounds, which occupy a prominent place in the range of industrial noise, are also dangerous. The mechanisms of their action on living organisms are extremely diverse. The cells of the nervous system are especially susceptible to their negative effects.
Noise is insidious, its harmful effect on the body is invisibly, imperceptibly. Violations in the human body against noise is practically defenseless.
Currently, doctors are talking about noise disease, which develops as a result of exposure to noise with a primary lesion of hearing and the nervous system.
Weather and human well-being
A few decades ago, it never occurred to anyone to connect their performance, their emotional state and well-being with the activity of the Sun, with the phases of the Moon, with magnetic storms and other cosmic phenomena.
In any natural phenomenon that surrounds us, there is a strict repetition of processes: day and night, high and low tide, winter and summer. Rhythm is observed not only in the motion of the Earth, Sun, Moon and stars, but is also an integral and universal property of living matter, a property penetrating into all life phenomena - from the molecular level to the level of the whole organism.
In the course of historical development, a person has adapted to a certain rhythm of life, due to rhythmic changes in the natural environment and the energy dynamics of metabolic processes.
Currently, there are many rhythmic processes in the body, called biorhythms. These include the rhythms of the heart, breathing, bioelectrical activity of the brain. Our whole life is a constant change of rest and activity, sleep and wakefulness, fatigue from hard work and rest.
etc.................
A complex indicator of the state of human society is the level of health of the people themselves. According to modern concepts, health is the natural state of an organism that is in complete balance with the biosphere and is characterized by the absence of any pathological changes. According to the World Health Organization, health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
The state of health reflects the dynamic balance between the environment and the organism. Human health is influenced by lifestyle, genetic and environmental factors. Homeostasis is considered to be the relative dynamic constancy of the internal environment and some physiological functions of the body of people and animals, supported by self-regulation mechanisms under conditions of fluctuations in internal and external stimuli.
Human health, provided by the homeostasis of her body, can be maintained even with certain changes in environmental factors. Such changes cause the appearance of appropriate biological reactions in the human body, but due to adaptation processes, they do not lead to negative health consequences within certain limits of changing factors. For each person, these boundaries are individual.
Adaptation is also a sphere of scientific and practical interests of human ecology. Adaptation is the adaptation of an organism at the individual and population levels to changes in environmental conditions, developed in the process of evolutionary development.
A person is affected by various natural, economic, socio-cultural, psychological factors that affect her health. In this regard, human ecology interprets adaptation to new conditions as a set of socio-biological parameters necessary for the sustainable existence of an organism in a particular ecological environment. The adaptive capabilities of the individual and the population are in real conditions that form anthropoecological stresses - the problems of the human body caused by the action of environmental factors. Its factors are socio-psychological, industrial, domestic tension, hypokinesia (impairment of body functions due to limited motor activity), malnutrition, water and air pollution, increased noise, etc.
The study of the influence of these factors on a person is a prerequisite for the development of a scientifically based environmental policy, which should cover socio-economic, technological, technical, information and educational, organizational and other areas of activity aimed at developing the physical and mental capabilities of a person, his ability to improve, live in harmony with oneself and the natural world.
Today, for all successes, a person has not yet learned how to purposefully change his genotype, and therefore the limits of his body's resistance to various environmental factors have remained almost the same. For example, like tens of thousands of years ago, the following are considered optimal for a person: air temperature 18-35 ° C, atmospheric pressure 80-150 kPa, pH of drinking water 5.5-8.0, nitrate content in it 2-15 mg / l . However, there are fewer and fewer places on Earth where these factors are in the human optimum zone: there is a lot of water with a low content of nitrates and optimal pH in the tundra or in the highlands, but the temperature, and in the mountains and pressure, go beyond the optimum. Conversely, on the plain, where both pressure and temperature are optimal, water is increasingly polluted with nitrates. Despite this, people live both on the plain and in the mountains. This is where the principle of limiting factors comes into play: if at least one of them goes beyond the tolerance range, it becomes limiting. When the value of such a factor has not yet reached the lethal limit, but has already left the optimum zone, the body experiences physiological stress: in mountainous areas it is mountain sickness, and in the plains, due to the increased content of nitrates in water, general weakness and depression.
A person, like any living being, is affected by a specific factor not by itself, but in interaction with others, and depending on the nature of this interaction, the range of tolerance may change.
For example, at a relative air humidity of 30%, an air temperature of 28 ° C corresponds to the optimum zone. But at a humidity of 70%, this same temperature goes beyond the optimum and falls into the pessimum zone: breathing speeds up, a feeling of heat and suffocation appears, depression, a person can lose consciousness.
Since the time of Hippocrates, health has been defined as the absence of disease; as a state of the body in which it is able to fully perform its functions. In this sense, health is the object of medicine. A practitioner always works with a specific person, studying the patient's health status, determines the presence of chronic diseases, analyzes the functional state of his organs and systems, individual resistance, mental and physical development, and, based on the results of the examination, makes a specific decision on treatment.
The dependence of health on heredity and environmental factors is the main aspect of the problem of human health at the population level. In this case, the object of study is not an individual, but a population or a combination of populations - an ethnic group, a nation, humanity as a whole. Health at the population level is a more general category, since what concerns the population necessarily also affects specific individuals. For example, in some areas of Polissya and Western Ukraine, a common disease is endemic goiter, which affects about half a million people. The cause of this disease is the deficiency of iodine in water and the high content of humic acids in it. In each case, the doctor prescribes drugs containing iodine. However, at the population level, a more effective way to combat the disease is to correct the mineral composition of drinking water or food by adding the required amount of iodine. This procedure applies immediately to the entire population and is not only curative, but also preventive.
The problem of human health at the population level deals with one of the new branches of ecology - medical ecology. In medical ecology, as well as in population ecology in general, statistical indicators are considered the main indicators of the state of human populations. Determining the health of a population, medical ecologists primarily analyze birth and death rates, life expectancy, morbidity and its structure, performance, psychological indicators, such as life satisfaction. Demographic indicators (life expectancy, birth-to-mortality ratio) make it possible to assess the general state of the population. However, the most informative environmentally morbidity and its structure. Morbidity reflects the degree of adaptability of the population to environmental conditions, and the structure of morbidity reflects the proportion of each disease in their total number.
Knowledge of the incidence and its structure, the causes of diseases, the environmental conditions through which these three causes arise, gives a person a powerful tool to protect his population and each individual from the effects of adverse environmental factors.
Morbidity is not a random phenomenon. Approximately 50% of it is due to the lifestyle of each individual person. Bad habits, malnutrition, insufficient physical activity, loneliness, stress, violation of work and rest regimes contribute to the development of diseases. About 40% of the incidence depends on heredity and environmental conditions - climate, environmental pollution - and about 10% is determined by the current level of medical care.
Within the range of tolerance, a person adapts to environmental conditions due to numerous protective and adaptive (adaptive) reactions of the body, the main of which are maintaining the constancy of the properties of the internal environment (homeostasis), regenerative processes, immunity, regulation of metabolism. Within the framework of the optimum, these reactions ensure efficient functioning, high performance, and efficient recovery. And in the case of the transition of any factor into the pessimum zone, the effectiveness of individual adaptive systems decreases or the adaptive ability is lost altogether. Pathological changes begin in the body, which indicates a certain disease. The pathological condition under the influence of adverse environmental factors often turns out to be poisoning (toxicosis), allergic reactions, malignant tumors, hereditary diseases, congenital anomalies.
Environmental factors affecting human health
All processes in the biosphere are interconnected. Mankind is only an insignificant part of the biosphere, and man is only one of the types of organic life - Homo sapiens (reasonable man). Reason singled out man from the animal world and gave him great power. For centuries, man has sought not to adapt to the natural environment, but to make it convenient for his existence. Now we have realized that any human activity has an impact on the environment, and the deterioration of the biosphere is dangerous for all living beings, including humans. A comprehensive study of a person, his relationship with the outside world led to the understanding that health is not only the absence of disease, but also the physical, mental and social well-being of a person. Health is a capital given to us not only by nature from birth, but also by the conditions in which we live.
Chemical pollution of the environment and human health
Currently, human economic activity is increasingly becoming the main source of pollution of the biosphere. Gaseous, liquid and solid industrial wastes enter the natural environment in increasing quantities. Various chemicals in the waste, getting into the soil, air or water, pass through the ecological links from one chain to another, eventually getting into the human body.
It is almost impossible to find a place on the globe where pollutants would not be present in one or another concentration. Even in the ice of Antarctica, where there are no industrial facilities, and people live only at small scientific stations, scientists have discovered various toxic (poisonous) substances of modern industries. They are brought here by atmospheric flows from other continents.
Substances polluting the natural environment are very diverse. Depending on their nature, concentration, time of action on the human body, they can cause various adverse effects. Short-term exposure to small concentrations of such substances can cause dizziness, nausea, sore throat, cough. The ingestion of large concentrations of toxic substances into the human body can lead to loss of consciousness, acute poisoning and even death. An example of such an action can be smog formed in large cities in calm weather, or accidental releases of toxic substances into the atmosphere by industrial enterprises.
The body's reactions to pollution depend on individual characteristics: age, gender, health status. As a rule, children, the elderly and sick people are more vulnerable.
With a systematic or periodic intake of relatively small amounts of toxic substances into the body, chronic poisoning occurs.
Signs of chronic poisoning are a violation of normal behavior, habits, as well as neuropsychic deviations: rapid fatigue or a feeling of constant fatigue, drowsiness or, conversely, insomnia, apathy, weakening of attention, absent-mindedness, forgetfulness, severe mood swings.
In chronic poisoning, the same substances in different people can cause various damage to the kidneys, blood-forming organs, nervous system, and liver.
Similar signs are observed in radioactive contamination of the environment.
Thus, in areas exposed to radioactive contamination as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, the incidence among the population, especially children, has increased many times over.
Biologically highly active chemical compounds can cause a long-term effect on human health: chronic inflammatory diseases of various organs, changes in the nervous system, an effect on the intrauterine development of the fetus, leading to various abnormalities in newborns.
Doctors have established a direct link between the increase in the number of people suffering from allergies, bronchial asthma, cancer, and the deterioration of the environmental situation in the region. It has been reliably established that such production wastes as chromium, nickel, beryllium, asbestos, and many pesticides are carcinogens, that is, they cause cancer. Back in the last century, cancer in children was almost unknown, but now it is becoming more and more common. As a result of pollution, new, previously unknown diseases appear. Their reasons can be very difficult to establish.
Smoking causes great harm to human health. A smoker not only inhales harmful substances himself, but also pollutes the atmosphere and endangers other people. It has been established that people who are in the same room with a smoker inhale even more harmful substances than he himself.
