#400 ‒ AMA #87: Environmental pollution and longevity: air pollution, noise, light, EMFs, and practical strategies to mitigate health risks

**Peter Attia** (0:10)
Hey, everyone, welcome to a sneak peek, Ask Me Anything, or AMA episode of the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. At the end of this short episode, I'll explain how you can access the AMA episodes in full, along with a ton of other membership benefits we've created. Or you can learn more now by going to peterattiamd.com/subscribe.
So without further delay, here's today's sneak peek of the Ask Me Anything episode.
Welcome to Ask Me Anything AMA episode 87 Today we're talking about environmental pollution. This is a complicated topic because while many of the risks are real, the evidence isn't always as clear cut as you might like. And unfortunately, the public conversation tends to pull in two directions as a result of that. So we're gonna go through the evidence for some of the most common environmental exposures and give you a practical and actionable framework for deciding what deserves your attention and just as importantly, what does not. So in this episode, we'll cover what environmental pollution actually means and where it fits into the longevity conversation and hierarchy, why these exposures are so difficult to study, the potential health effects or negative health effects from air pollution and what you should actually do to improve your air quality, how noise and light pollution can affect your sleep and cardiovascular health, and some practical tips to reduce their impact on you. And finally, an honest look at the science on EMF and 5G and whether the concern is warranted. If you're a subscriber and you want to watch the full video of this podcast, you can find it on the show notes page. And if you're not a subscriber, you can watch the sneak peek of that video on our YouTube page. So without further delay, I hope you'll enjoy AMA 87

**Nick** (2:11)
Peter, welcome to another AMA. How are you doing?

**Peter Attia** (2:14)
Good.

**Nick** (2:14)
Thank you.
Good. So today we're going to be talking about environmental pollution and all things related to that. So before we do, I think it might be helpful for you to first explain to the listener what exactly do we mean by environmental pollution? And also, why does that even belong in a conversation around longevity?

**Peter Attia** (2:34)
I mean, look, I think at a literal level, environmental pollution is the introduction of harmful substances or harmful forms of energy, which we'll talk about, into the environment. And I think the word harmful is doing a lot of work there. We're not just talking about something being unnatural, manmade or detectable. That wouldn't kind of rise to the level that we're talking about. We're talking about an exposure that can negatively affect a living system. And I'm going to just pause it for the moment that we are the system of interest for the purpose of this podcast.
So the obvious examples which we will discuss are things like air pollution, but also things like water pollution, soil contamination. But other things that we're going to touch on are forms of pollution that can refer to forms of energy or sensory disruption such as noise and artificial light. Now we already did an AMA on chemical pollutants like microplastics, PFAS, phthalates, and we'll obviously link to that for folks, so they can go back and hear that. So I'm not going to obviously repeat that stuff. Instead, I want to focus more on the physical environment and the exposures that people encounter every day in their life. And I think the big ones here is basically the air that you're breathing, the noise you're hearing, the light that you're exposed to, and the electromagnetic fields around us. Again, the reason I'm not covering water and even soil right now is a lot of was captured through microplastics, PFAS, and phthalates, which is generally the vehicle through which those travel.
Okay, then to your second question, like why does this belong in the discussion around longevity? Well, it really comes down to, again, the definition of what harmful is. And some of these exposures are clearly linked to things that we care about, right? Cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, cancer, sleep disruptions, even cognitive effects, and outright mortality. Again, air pollution is probably the clearest example of this. If you've ever been to a city with very heavy air pollution, or somewhere during a wildfire event, you don't need a randomized trial to explain to you that breathing there is horrible. And the epidemiology will very quickly demonstrate that even over a short period of time. But I think the more interesting question is, what happens well below the obvious threshold? And I think that's the area where most people, myself included, are interested to understand this.