Air Pollution Riskier for Heart Disease than for Respiratory Ailments

A study has shown that people with long-term exposure to air pollution have a greater risk of dying from heart disease than from respiratory ailments. The results were reported in the December 16, 2003, issue of Circulation.

The ongoing study included participants aged 30 or older, living in U.S. metropolitan areas with available air pollution data. The data were matched with air pollution data from up to 156 cities. The analysis focused on microscopic particles in the air that measured less then 2.5 micrometers in diameter, called PM2.5, which is also the size range of particles in cigarette smoke.

Over the 16-year period, 22.5% of the people in the study died. An analysis of these deaths confirmed a clear association between air pollution and an increase in death rates. The researchers found that about 45% of all deaths in the study were due to cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks, heart failure, and cardiac arrest. Respiratory disease accounted for only 8.2% of deaths.

"We might be able to reduce the underlying processes of some cardiovascular disease just by reducing the exposure to air pollutants,” said lead author C. Arden Pope, III, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Brigham Young University (Provo, UT).




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