Association of short-term exposure to fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide with acute cardiovascular effects

A systematic review of arterial stiffness, wave reflection and air pollution

“…In total, 52 studies were excluded based on a review of the title and the abstract only; 16 studies were excluded after the reading of the full text. The remaining 8 studies, published within the last 8 years, reported carotid-femoral PWV (2 studies), brachial-ankle PWV (2 studies), augmentation index and/or augmentation pressure measurements (6 studies) and were considered for the review (19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26). The main results of the studies included in this review are reported in Table I.…”

“…Exposure to air pollutants and arterial stiffness. The exposure to particulate matter pollutants (PM 2.5 , PM 10 ) was evaluated in 8 studies (19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26). In 6 of them (19,(22)(23)(24)(25)(26), the exposure was associated with an increased arterial stiffness and/or wave reflection (estimated by brachial-ankle PWV, augmentation index and augmentation pressure) whereas in the remaining two studies (20,21) the exposure was not associated with either carotid-femoral PWV or augmentation index.…”

“…The exposure to particulate matter pollutants (PM 2.5 , PM 10 ) was evaluated in 8 studies (19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26). In 6 of them (19,(22)(23)(24)(25)(26), the exposure was associated with an increased arterial stiffness and/or wave reflection (estimated by brachial-ankle PWV, augmentation index and augmentation pressure) whereas in the remaining two studies (20,21) the exposure was not associated with either carotid-femoral PWV or augmentation index. However, in one of these negative studies (20), the PM 2.5 exposure variability within the urban population was very low (mean PM 2.5 exposure: 21.4±1.1 µg/m 3 ); in the second negative study (21), despite the augmentation index was slightly increased (25.4±4.8% vs. 22.6±5.1%) in the group of patients with the higher PM 2.5 exposure, this difference was not significant, probably for the small sample size (n=23).…”

“…However, in one of these negative studies (20), the PM 2.5 exposure variability within the urban population was very low (mean PM 2.5 exposure: 21.4±1.1 µg/m 3 ); in the second negative study (21), despite the augmentation index was slightly increased (25.4±4.8% vs. 22.6±5.1%) in the group of patients with the higher PM 2.5 exposure, this difference was not significant, probably for the small sample size (n=23). The exposure to gaseous pollutants (NO 2 , NO x , SO 2 ) was evaluated in 3 studies (20,22,24) and was associated with increased arterial stiffness and wave reflection in two large studies (20,22) whereas no significant association with brachial-ankle PWV was observed for NO 2 in the third, smaller study (24).…”

Acute Effects of Air Pollution and Noise from Road Traffic in a Panel of Young Healthy Subjects

“…The acute effects of air pollutants have been demonstrated repeatedly in respiratory [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] and cardiovascular patients [16][17][18][19][20][21]. Such panel studies have been performed in the elderly [22][23][24][25] and in areas with high air pollution [1,14,[26][27][28][29][30], but less so in young and healthy people in settings with moderate to low air pollution levels [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. We recruited healthy students from Vienna to study the physiological reactions of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems when exposed to everyday urban air pollution.…”