More than 250,000 premature deaths expected due to air pollution

Air pollution: Fighting over-population (and just population, generally) since the Industrial Revolution.

A new study coming out of Peking University projects that more than a quarter of a million people in China may have their lives cut short by the wrath of China's silent killer (except when emitted from fireworks), smog.

The study analyzed smog-related deaths in major Chinese cities, and found that an average of 90 out of every 100,000 people could die prematurely from long-term exposure to smog. While 90 per 100,000 people doesn't sound like a staggering number, consider that, in the Big-Gulp-chugging land of the USA, deaths from diabetes total only an average of 21.2 per 100,000 people.

That means, roughly speaking, that China's smog problem is nearly five times worse than America's diabetes problem. (And, speaking as an American, we've got a lot of diabetes.) It is not as significant as America's heart disease problem, which totals 169 people per 100,000, but it's working its way there.

The worst rate in the country was in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, which pulls in an astounding estimate of 137 deaths per 100,000.

This study comes just a few days after a national report revealed that 90 percent of China's cities failed to meet their air quality standards in 2014 - bad news for anyone who lives outside of Haikou or Zhoushan.

In the meantime, we recommend everyone don their masks and keep eating those sugary snacks - it won't be the diabetes that'll get ya'.