When breathing can kill

Air pollution now causes more deaths than smoking.

A report published in the European Heart Journal last March made this stunning announcement: the number of premature deaths related to particle pollution reached 8.8 million in 2015 alone. Atmospheric pollution is thus now a bigger killer than smoking, which accounted for "only" 7 million deaths in the same year.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, and cardiovascular diseases like thrombosis, stroke or heart attack...the number of diseases related to air pollution is undeniably huge, and more cause-effect correlations are found with every new research work published.

These worrying conclusions serve as yet a bleak reminder that right now the amount of particle matter in Europe is 2.5 times the fixed recommended threshold of the World Health Organization.