Sport with high levels of fine dust affects the cardiovascular system – healing practice

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Exercise: Sports tend to be harmful in poor air

Regular exercise can prevent lifestyle diseases such as high blood pressure, obesity and cardiovascular diseases. But if the sport takes place outdoors and the air is very polluted, it damages the heart and the circulation. This shows a new study with around 1.5 million people.

Experts emphasize again and again how important exercise is for our body. Regular exercise can help in weight loss, help to stimulate the immune system and reduce the risk of diseases such as cardiovascular disease. It is often said that exercising outdoors is best for your body. But this does not apply to bad air.

Movement in the presence of air pollution can be harmful

As the German Center for Cardiovascular Research eV in a current Message writes, exercise in the fresh air can do more harm than good if there is a certain level of air pollution.

Because with high levels of particulate matter, outdoor exercise affects the cardiovascular system. This proves a current one study from South Korea with nearly 1.5 million young adults.

“What is special about the study is that it for the first time specifies a threshold for particulate matter pollution, above which it is detrimental to the heart and circulatory system to do sports outside,” explains Professor Thomas Münzel, scientist at the German Center for Cardiovascular Research ( DZHK) at the Mainz University Medical Center.

With moderate particulate matter pollution, physical activity promoted the health of the study participants. With higher air pollution levels, however, sport had the opposite effect and damaged the cardiovascular system.

“The EU’s fine dust limit values ​​are very close to the range in which, according to the study, physical activity outdoors is already harmful to the cardiovascular system,” said Münzel. “Regionally, the limit values ​​are even exceeded in Germany, for example in high industrial areas.”

Fine dust gets into all organs

As explained in the communication, fine dust gets into the blood via the alveoli and thus to all other organs. In the heart and in the blood vessels it leads to chronic inflammation, which can lead to arteriosclerosis, heart attack and stroke.

The smallest particles of fine dust can even cross the blood-brain barrier and then trigger inflammation in the brain.

Apps can help

Whether you should jog outdoors or train at home on the treadmill depends on the environmental pollution on site. There are now more and more measuring stations that record air pollution, noise and temperature. Satellite data can also be used to predict environmental pressures.

Special apps then use this data and calculate whether or not outdoor exercise is recommended. According to Münzel, it is important that the apps make it possible to estimate the inhaled dose of air pollution individually, depending on the planned movement and the local measured values.

Because that is the best measure to decide whether exercise in the fresh air is healthy.

Study with weaknesses

The Mainz cardiologist also points out that the Korean study has some limitations. It was not always possible to precisely assess whether the participants had trained outside or inside.

In addition, a questionnaire was only used once a week to determine how intensively they had exercised. This can lead to incorrect information, as the participants may have incorrectly remembered.

The Korean researchers determined the health effects, such as strokes or constricted coronary arteries, over a period of five years.

According to Münzel, further studies are therefore necessary to examine how short-term changes in air pollution, together with changes in physical activity, affect the cardiovascular system. (ad)