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According to a new study, exposure to everyday pollution from diesel-powered vehicles can be a health hazard for people with asthma impairing their lung function in just a few hours.

Carrying out the study, the researchers chose an urban environment where millions of shoppers go every year, the Oxford Street in London.

The study, the first to look at the impact of vehicle fumes on the health of asthmatics in a real setting, confirms what asthma patients have been telling their doctors for years -- that this type of pollution aggravates their condition.

It found that after just two hours in that London urban environment with diesel-only traffic, people with mild and moderate asthma experienced increased symptoms, reduced lung capacity and inflammation in the lungs.

When the same group of 60 volunteers spent two hours in a traffic-free part of London's Hyde Park, an inner city park just a few miles away, they experienced some of the same problems but to a far lesser degree.

"Our study illustrates the need to reduce pollution in order to protect people's health," said Fan Chung, a Professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College, London, and one of the authors on the paper.

"Environmental authorities need to ensure that pollution levels remain within recommended levels, and even then the pollution may be harmful to people who are particularly susceptible because they have conditions like asthma."

In the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers reported that the severity of the lung problems seen in the volunteers was linked to the amount of pollution spewed out by the diesel vehicles.