Thursday, December 10, 2015

Impacts of Long Term Exposure to Particulate Matter on Heart Rate Variability

English: A schematic of the global air polluti...
English: A schematic of the global air pollution. The map was made by User:KVDP using the GIMP. It was based on the global air pollution map by the ESA (see http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEM340NKPZD_index_0.html , http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/EarthObservation/pollution_global_hires.jpg ) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Exposure to sub-chronic and long-term particulate air pollution and heart rate variability in an elderly cohort: the Normative Aging Study (10 page pdf, Irina Mordukhovich, Brent Coull, Itai Kloog, Petros Koutrakis, Pantel Vokonas and Joel Schwartz, Environmental Health, Nov. 2015). 


Key Quotes: 

“Reduced HRV [heart rate variability]is predictive of increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality risk … Short-term particulate air pollution exposure is associated with reduced HRV in many epidemiologic studies.. Associations are particularly pronounced among the elderly .. among those with preexisting cardiovascular disease or diabetes” 

“We report positive associations between several measures of sub-chronic BC [black carbon] exposure, a marker of traffic pollution, and decreased HRV in a cohort of elderly men” 

 “It is also notable that the observed associations reflect not only short-term spikes in particulate levels, but rather occur at particulate pollutant levels that are consistently at or below EPA standard” 

“While studies consistently report associations between short-term particulate pollution exposure and reduced HF[high frequency], especially among the elderly or those with preexisting conditions …very few have examined exposure periods of greater than a few days “ 

“While most air pollution studies examine short-term exposures, longer-term exposures may be of most interest when assessing risk for chronic disease and dysfunction”  

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