Along the shores of the shrinking Salton Sea, desert winds regularly kick up dust and send it drifting through nearby neighborhoods. New research indicates that living there may affect kids’ lungs.

Scientists from the University of Southern California tested the lung capacity of 369 children between the ages of 10 and 12 for about two years and found that those who live less than 6.8 miles from the Salton Sea have diminished lung development compared with kids farther away.

The slower pulmonary development in these children was similar to the development of those who live very close to freeways.

“Basically, their overall lung capacity isn’t developing at the same rate as kids that live further away,” said Shohreh Farzan, a co-author of the study and associate professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine. “We’re seeing the impacts of dust events and proximity to the sea as being detrimental to children’s lung development.”

When lung growth is hindered in adolescence, “that can lead to increased risk for respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases later in life,” said Fangqi Guo, the study’s lead author.

The Salton Sea is California’s largest lake, covering about 300 square miles in Imperial and Riverside counties. It’s fed as Colorado River water drains off farm fields in the Imperial Valley.

The saline lake has been shrinking rapidly since the early 2000s, when the Imperial Irrigation District began selling some of its Colorado River water to growing urban areas under an agreement with agencies in San Diego County and the Coachella Valley.

The lake has gone down 14.5 feet since 2003, exposing more than 41,000 acres of lakebed. Researchers say years of agricultural chemicals and metals washing into the lake have made the dust toxic.

In low-income communities near the lake, children suffer from asthma at high rates. Researchers have previously found that about 1 in 5 children in the area have asthma, nearly triple the national average.

Other research has shown that dust collected near the Salton Sea triggers lung inflammation in mice.

For the latest study, published in JAMA Network Open, the USC researchers worked with the community group Comité Civico del Valle to recruit children to participate.

They measured how much air the children can push out after a deep breath.

They examined levels of fine particles in the air, as well as times when dust levels spike, often triggered by winds.

Dust around the Salton Sea has been recognized as a health problem for years.

To help control it and provide habitat for fish and birds, California agencies have been building berms and sending water flowing into man-made ponds along the shore, creating new wetlands. They’ve also been placing thousands of bales of straw on the exposed lakebed to block windblown dust.

“I think these efforts are not moving quickly enough,” Farzan said. “We need to have a renewed focus on making sure that we’re protecting children’s health.”

The dust doesn’t come only from the Salton Sea playa. It comes from the surrounding landscape, including farm fields, livestock operations, diesel exhaust and unpaved roads.

In a report last year, researchers with the Pacific Institute cited estimates that dust from the Salton Sea accounts for less than 1% of small particle pollution in the region.

Even though it may be a small percentage, Farzan said, “our results are clearly showing that there is something about proximity to the sea that is impactful for children’s health.”

The researchers did not differentiate between sources of dust in their latest study.

“It is possible that that small fraction may be more toxic, may contain different contaminants,” she said. “That’s something that we’re still really interested in learning more about.”

The dust could worsen if looming water cutbacks on the Colorado River accelerate the decline of the Salton Sea. The river flow has declined dramatically over the last quarter-century during a megadrought worsened by climate change.

There are similar issues at other drying lakes around the world, from Utah’s Great Salt Lake to the Aral Sea in Central Asia, Farzan noted, and this will require bigger efforts to contend with dust and its effects on people’s health.

Last fall, “Dr. Pimple Popper” suddenly became a patient herself.

Dr. Sandra Lee, the reality TV dermatologist and surgeon known for tackling ick-inducing skin situations on camera, had a bad day a week before Thanksgiving 2025 while she was taping new episodes of her show at her Upland office.

“I had what I thought was a hot flash. I got super sweaty and didn’t feel like myself,” she told People in an interview published Tuesday. She said she finished the shoot and then headed to her parents’ nearby home, where that evening she experienced shooting pains in one leg and later had trouble navigating down a flight of stairs in the middle of the night.

When she awakened the next day, she said, her left side wasn’t working properly and she was having trouble speaking clearly. It was definitely more than a hot flash.

Her doctor dad — also a dermatologist — told her to get herself to an ER, where she had an MRI that showed evidence of an ischemic stroke, where a vessel supplying blood to the brain gets obstructed. The diagnosis was a shock.

“As a physician I couldn’t deny that I had slurred speech, that I was having weakness on one side,” she said, “but I was like, ‘Well, this is a dream, right?’”

Lee, 55, said unmanaged cholesterol levels and high blood pressure were likely contributors to the stroke, plus the stress of balancing her real-life practice with the demands of “Dr. Pimple Popper.” She returned to production in January, she said, though she was more than a little freaked out.

“I don’t like that I don’t have total control of my left hand or the grip wasn’t as strong. If I feel like I’m not at my best — it’s very scary,” Lee said.

Her neurologist told the outlet that Lee’s symptoms are pretty much gone. Lee said she still notices slight differences when she speaks.

The TV doc is on blood thinners now and is still doing some physical therapy after spending two months post-stroke working through PT and occupational therapy. Lee had to make sure her left hand, among other body parts, was functional and that her balance and movement bounced back.

She does, after all, do precise procedures on camera for the Lifetime audience.

And with new episodes of “Dr. Pimple Popper” set to debut Monday for the first time since 2023, Lee remains fascinated by the people who spend time watching her do extractions and excisions, both on the show and online.

“People watch the videos over and over again because it helps them go to sleep at night,” she told People. But, she added, “Others watch it like it’s a scary movie or a roller coaster.”