Atlanta Joggers: Like Smoking 'Smog Cigarettes'

ATLANTA (July 25, 2008) -- The 2008 Summer Olympic Games begin in just two weeks, and Beijing's air pollution is still so bad, endurance events such as the marathon may have to be postponed.

As for the site of the 1996 Summer Games, Metro Atlanta's 2008 summer smog is bad enough that doctors are advising people not to exercise outside on weekday evenings.

The evening is "rush hour" in any neighborhood or park in Metro Atlanta, Monday through Friday: after-work workouts that, THIS summer, sometime make Danielle Dickey feel as if she'd chain-smoked a carton of cigarettes just before her jog.

"Some days I can't even run three minutes," Dickey said during her workout in NE Atlanta Thursday evening. "There are some days where I can't breathe. Some days I just quit in the middle of my workout, 'cause it's pretty rough."

She never thought to blame Metro Atlanta's summer smog. But doctors say that's the culprit.

The smog is now peaking, is at its worst, in the evenings, Monday through Friday: as if there were an invisible, odorless "smog cigarette" in the mouth of every one of the deep-breathing, after-work joggers, walkers and bicycle riders.

"When you breathe more air, you're more sensitive to all the stuff that's IN that air, because you're breathing more of it," said Robert Geller, M.D. of Grady Hospital and Emory University. "In Atlanta, our air is usually better early in the day than late in the day. Late in the day we're seeing the accumulated effects of all those cars on our highways and on our streets. And so [people] would do better if they worked out early in the day, say at 7:00 a.m., than if they work out at 5:00 p.m."

Dr. Geller says that working out in the smoggiest part of the day can be more than just irritating to the lungs and heart. It can lead to long-term bad health.

Take a look at the State of Georgia website that measures the smog every hour of every day, the "Air Quality Index." Every day the smog level spikes between 6pm and 9pm. On the worst days, the smog level does not decrease out of the unhealthy level until close to midnight, and sometimes later.

"Over time, the effects [on health] build up," said Dr. Geller. "And we know that people living in areas that have worse air quality like we do in Atlanta have a higher rate of heart disease and other problems like that. So, long-term, it does hurt us, all of us."

The doctor's advice: people should not let the smog discourage them from working out. If they have access to an indoor gym, they should work out there.

Or, as Dr. Geller said, they could simply get up early during the summer and shift their outside workouts to the mornings.