Why Asbestos is Killing American Workers ?

We all heard of Absestos and the horrible consequences it has in our health. Asbestosis is "a form of lung disease (pneumoconiosis)" which causes interstitial fibrosis or scarring of the lungs.

Asbestosis is progressive and, for the most part, irreversible. Respiratory impairment worsens with time, even if exposure to asbestos has ceased. Asbestosis is usually found in asbestos workers and not in the general public. People with asbestosis have shortness of breath, often along with a cough. Asbestos cretes Mesothelioma, and Mesothelioma is a form of cancer which affects mesothelial tissue in the lungs, peritoneum or pericardium.

The biggest concern mesothelioma is that can arise both from visceral and parietal peritoneum. It is diagnosed in advanced stages in most cases, and it often takes considerable time to arrive at the correct diagnosis, as the mean symptoms-to-diagnosis time reported is 122 days.

The most frequently reported initial symptoms are abdominal pain (35%), abdominal swelling (31%), anorexia, marked weight loss, and ascites ; less frequently night sweats and hypercoagulability. Clinical presentation with fever of unknown origin, intestinal obstruction, or surgical emergency (due to acute inflammatory lesions) have been reported. Mesothelioma (cancer of the mesothelium) is a disease in which cells of the mesothelium become abnormal and divide without control or order. They can invade and damage nearby tissues and organs.

Mesothelioma is defined as an ICD-O histology code of 9050-9053. Data are presented for a five-year time period. Mesothelioma cell viability was decreased in a dose-dependent manner by lovastatin (5 to 30 microM).

These effects were not reversed by exogenous growth factors or cholesterol, but were reversed by addition of doses of micro mevalonate, confirming that lovastatin affected mesothelioma viability by inhibiting mevalonate synthesis.
This is based on the fact that Mesothelioma is a cancer of the thin lining surrounding the lung. That's whythis disease is almost always fatal, often within a few months of diagnosis.

The scary part about this ilness: is that mesothelioma has a much longer latency period compared with lung cancer (40 years versus 15-20 years). Understanding this, mesothelioma is therefore likely to be found among workers who were first exposed to asbestos at an early age.

Mesothelioma is always fatal. Mesothelioma has also been found in individuals who were exposed to asbestos only once decades earlier. The only known cause of mesothelioma is asbestos. As we mentioned before, mesothelioma has a much longer latency period compared with lung cancer (40 years versus 15-20 years), and that is why mesothelioma is always fatal. Once you found out that you have mesothelioma, it is usually to late.

Exposure to asbestos has also been associated with an increased incidence of esophageal, kidney, laryngeal, pharyngeal, and buccal cavity cancers.

As with other known chronic occupational diseases, disease associated with asbestos generally appears about twenty years following the first occurrence of exposure: There are no known acute effects associated with exposure to asbestos.

Exposure to ozone for several hours, at relatively low concentrations, has been found to significantly reduce lung function. Also this sort of exposure induce respiratory inflammation in normal, healthy people during exercise. This decrease in lung function generally is accompanied by symptoms including chest pain, coughing, sneezing, and pulmonary congestion.

Also it is vital to remind readers, that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is a significant cause of lung cancers in people who themselves do not use tobacco. Let's don't forget that between 3000 and 6000 lung cancer deaths per year in the United States are caused by exposure to ETS.

Source: Joaquin Costa