Friday, May 31, 2013

Measuring Health Rate Variability near Traffic

English: Oxidative stress process Italiano: Pr...
English: Oxidative stress process Italiano: Processo dello stress ossidativo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

PM2.5, oxidant defence and cardiorespiratory health: a review(15 page pdf, Scott A Weichenthal,Krystal Godri-Pollitt, Paul J Villeneuve, Environmental Health, May 4, 2013) 

Today we review research aimed at seeing if there is a significant link between oxidative stress and the cardiovascular health impacts, arising from exposure to high levels of PM2.5- and if so, the value of oxidative burden as a metric. Results indicate there is an inverse relationship between heart rate variability (HRV) and PM2.5 which may be useful when assessing health threats from proximity to vehicle emissions in heavy traffic.  

Key Quotes: 

“Of the plausible biological mechanisms explaining PM2.5 health effects, oxidative stress is often cited as playing an important role in both respiratory and cardiovascular outcomes”

 “Here we review epidemiological evidence related to the role of oxidative stress (and oxidant defence) in PM-induced cardiorespiratory morbidity.” 

“stronger inverse associations were observed between PM2.5 and HRV among subjects with genetic polymorphisms that impaired oxidant defence;” 

“a polymorphism in the enzyme needed to produce reduced glutathione (important for oxidant defence) was found to modify the impact of PM2.5 exposure on lung function growth among children,” 

 “Conceptually, PM oxidative burden is an appealing exposure metric for epidemiological analysis as it aims to capture the ability of PM to modify a biological process known to contribute to adverse cardiorespiratory health effects…. little evidence is available to gauge the potential role of this metric in ambient air quality management.” 

“oxidative potential measures from this assay have been shown to vary with proximity to important sources of air pollution such as traffic..and further evaluation of an expanded set of health outcomes with both acute and chronic exposure intervals are required before the validity of this measure can be fairly assessed.”
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