Air quality due to smoke across Iowa’s eastern half remains in the “very unhealthy” category today and comparisons are being drawn about the equivalent of how many cigarettes you’d be smoking just by being outside.
Des Moines oncologist Richard Deming says it’s unclear if the environmental conditions are raising our risk of developing lung cancer, but it’s certainly not good.
“Inhaling smoke of any kind is detrimental to health,” Doctor. Deming says. “It would take a big study with lots of patients to show that a couple of weeks of inhaling smoke from a forest fire in Canada increased the risk of lung cancer, but it certainly is theoretically possible.”
The Iowa DNR is extending its air quality advisory for the state’s eastern half through midnight tonight, and even healthy adults are urged to limit outdoor activities.
Iowa ranks number-two behind only Kentucky for its cancer incidence rate. Deming says cigarette smoking is a large part of the problem in Kentucky, but he says other factors come into play in making Iowa the nation’s second-worst cancer state.
Dr. Deming. (MercOne photo)
“In Iowa, we’re very concerned not just about smoke from Canada, but we’re concerned about all of the ag chemicals, the pesticides, the herbicides, the fertilizers,” Deming says. “When you look at an aerial map of Iowa, we’re almost border to border and border to border, ag chemicals that are getting into our environment.”
Deming is medical director of the Richard Deming Cancer Center at MercyOne in Des Moines, and he founded the Above + Beyond Cancer program in 2011. He says researchers are still working to learn about the carcinogenic impact of various chemicals we’re being exposed to every day in modern life.
“There’s no doubt that many of these chemicals provide great benefit to us, in terms of food production and convenience and packaging,” Deming says, “but there’s no doubt, many of these chemicals do increase the risk of cancer in our population.”
Lung cancer is the most common cancer killer in Iowa, accounting for one out of every four cancer deaths. The University of Iowa-based Iowa Cancer Registry estimates more than 24-hundred Iowans will be diagnosed with it this year.