Air Pollution, Weather Stress, and Blood Pressure
Bibliographic Data
Ibald-Mulli et al. recently reported a potentially important association between particulate air pollution and increased blood pressure and stated that this had not been documented previously.1 In fact, our research group previously reported a positive longitudinal relation between blood pressure and ambient particulate pollution.2 Our study differed markedly from Ibald-Mulli's in scale, duration, location, atmospheric conditions, and subject characteristics, as shown in Table 1. ▶ Nevertheless, certain key results—regression slopes (b) for blood pressure vs particulate pollution concentration—in the 2 studies were similar for our panel with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and for Ibald-Mulli's subgroups with identified risk factors (high plasma viscosity or heart rate). Our modestly larger values might reflect our measurement of particles with aerodynamic diameter <10 μm (PM10) rather than total suspended particles (TSP). TABLE 1— Effects of Air Pollution on Health: Comparative Results in Ibald-Mulli et al.1 and Linn et al.2 As Ibald-Mulli et al. pointed out, weather stresses or gaseous pollutants may confound particle–health relationships. Although we could not study confounders in detail, we found that our subjects' blood pressure appeared to respond to PM10 as measured in the outdoor background urban air environment, even though they spent most of their time inside their homes, where particle mass and chemical composition were noticeably different. Again, this seems consistent with the findings of Ibald-Mulli et al., based on outdoor background pollution measurements. On the basis of this evidence, we recommend wider use of simple noninvasive cardiovascular measurements in studies of air pollution and weather stresses. Increased understanding of response mechanisms, and clearer identification of populations at risk, should result
Air pollution · Biology · Blood pressure · Environmental health · Geography · Meteorology · Stress (linguistics) · Air Quality and Health Impacts · Air Quality Monitoring and Forecasting · Climate Change and Health Impacts · Ecology · Environmental Science · Internal Medicine · Medicine
| Citations per year | 0.09 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2004 - 2006 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |