There are moments when you want your breath taken away. Other times, for instance when you are sleeping, maybe not so much. Unfortunately, for 12 million Americans suffering from sleep-disordered breathing, this isn’t always an option. While previous risks to sleep-disordered breathing came from obesity or family history, researchers have recently found a new contributing factor: pollution.

Researchers form the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health explored the link between air pollution levels, temperature increases, and sleep-disordered breathing. Their study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, used data from the Sleep Heart Health Study. The study followed 6,000 participants from 1995 to 1998. Researchers cross-examined the sleep study results with EPA air pollution monitoring data from 7 U.S. cities during the same years. Using the two sources, researchers were successful in finding a link between pollution, temperature, and sleep-disordered breathing.

The study showed that pollution affected sleep patterns in a particular way. Researchers found that particles in pollution influence the upper airways as well as the central nervous system. This disturbance leads to poor and disrupted sleep which affects both health and overall well-being. Probably the most important outcome of this study is the ever prevalent idea that environmental pollution and damage can have serious repercussions on human health. Even something as small as a particle can affect millions of individuals in polluted places. The key to remember is that the more we try to avoid the fact that pollution and other environmental harms are hurting us, the more damage they will do.