How Exposure To Pollution Harms Your Heart
Living in areas affected by heavy smog and air pollution puts you at greater risk for lung diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer. But when it comes to air pollution, you should be concerned about your heart health as well.
Research published in September 2015 in Environment Health Perspectives shows that exposure to higher levels of air pollution over an eight-year period increased a person’s risk for death, and specifically, death from cardiovascular disease. The researchers drew their data from medical records of more than 500,000 people in an American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) study.
Even before this study, a strong body of scientific evidence suggested that air pollution and heart disease are linked. Pollutants in the air can cause plaque in a person’s blood vessel to rupture, which can lead to heart attack and stroke, notes the American Heart Association (AHA). In addition, air pollution can cause death from heart attacks not only on the day that pollution is extremely high, but also months later.
Evidence of Heart Diseases Linked to Pollution
A 2013 study published in PLOS Medicine found that particulate matter concentrations in the air were linked to hardening of the arteries. The dirtier the air, the more people’s carotid arteries thicken, a condition called atherosclerosis.
A 2014 review of studies published in the European Heart Journal found that exposure to pollution was linked to heart failure, arrhythmias and cardiac arrest, stroke, venous thromboembolism (blood clots), and atherosclerosis, as well as inflammation that can harm the heart. “The abundance of evidence shows air pollution increases the risk of heart disease and associated death,” says the study’s corresponding author, Robert Storey, BM, DM, a cardiologist and professor in the department of cardiovascular science at the University of Sheffield in England.
Enesta Jones, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, DC, says that her agency, too, has seen a link. They have enough scientific evidence to conclude that air pollution can cause premature death and harmful effects on the cardiovascular system that fall under the broad umbrella of heart disease, she says.Read more
Source: (everydayhealth)
