The ultrafine particles in the polluted air of big cities are not only a danger to our lungs, but also to our heart. This is the conclusion of a recent study of unprecedented scale.
Pollution would not only affect the respiratory system but also the heart. Researchers at Yale University have investigated the impact of a certain type of particles from urban pollution on the heart. These particles invisible to the naked eye, called ultrafine, measure a hundred nanometers. They are mainly emitted by the exhaust pipes of vehicles with internal combustion engines. They are also one of the main indicators of a city’s ambient air pollution rate. To check whether or not there may be a correlation between exposure to ultrafine particles and heart attacks, scientists studied the former’s concentration records with the latter’s medical reports in the German city of Augsburg. Their findings – the first of their kind on the subject – were published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
The researchers analyzed the information attached to nearly 6000 heart attacks, or myocardial infarction, non-fatal between 2005 and 2015. They focused mainly on the dates and times of the onset of each heart attack in order to compare them to the corresponding air pollution records. They noticed that an increase in the number of ultrafine particles detected, their size and / or their concentration per unit area, coincided well with an increase in the number of heart attacks. This increase would be between 3 and 6%. Above all, they noted that this phenomenon occurred relatively quickly: more precisely, in an interval of six hours between the pollution report and the hour corresponding to a crisis. “Temporary exposure to ultrafine particles appears to be capable of triggering non-lethal myocardial infarction”, clearly concludes the scientific study. Researchers are now interested in finding out whether the association of air pollution and increased temperature plays a role in the risk of heart attack. With this approach, they think they can identify which groups of people are more vulnerable than others and thus propose preventive health measures.
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