The relationship between daily cardiovascular mortality and daily ambient concentrations of particulate pollutants (sulfur, arsenic, selenium, and mercury) and daily source contributions from coal power plants and smelters (individually, combined, and with interaction) in Phoenix, AZ, 1995–1998: A multipollutant approach to acute, time-series air pollution epidemiology: I

Abstract

The relationship between daily cardiovascular mortality and daily ambient concentrations of particulate pollutants (sulfur, arsenic, selenium, and mercury) and daily source contributions from coal power plants and smelters (individually, combined, and with interaction) in Phoenix, AZ, 1995-1998: A multipollutant approach to acute, time-series air pollution epidemiology: I William E. WilsonTo cite this article: William E. Wilson (2015) The relationship between daily cardiovascular mortality and daily ambient concentrations of particulate pollutants (sulfur, arsenic, selenium, and mercury) and daily source contributions from coal power plants and smelters (individually, combined, and with interaction) in Phoenix, AZ, 1995AZ, -1998 The objective of this paper is to estimate the increase in risk of daily cardiovascular mortality due to an increase in the daily ambient concentration of the individual particulate pollutants sulfur (S), arsenic (As), selenium (Se), and mercury (Hg) using single-pollutant models (SPMs) and to compare this risk to the combined increase in risk due to an increase in all four pollutants by including all four pollutants in the same model (multipollutant model, MPM) and to the risks from source contributions from power plants and smelters. Individual betas in a multipollutant model (MPM) were summed to give a combined beta. Interaction was investigated with a pollutant product term. SPMs (controlling for time trends, temperature, and relative humidity), for an interquartile range (IQR) increase in the pollutant concentration on lag day 0, gave these percent excess risks (±95% confidence levels): S, 6.9% (1.3-12%); As, 2.9% (0.4-5.5%); Se, 1.4% (-1.7 to 4.6); Hg, 9.6% (4.8-14.6%). The SPM beta for S (as sulfate) was higher than found in other studies. The SPM beta for Hg gave the largest t-statistic and beta per unit mass of any pollutant studied. An (IQR) increase in all four pollutants gave an excess risk of 15.4% (7.5-23.8%), slightly smaller than the combination of S and Hg, 16.7% (9.1-24.9%). The combined beta was 71% of the sum of the four individual SPM betas, indicating a reduction in confounding among pollutants in the combined model. As and Se were shown to be noncausal; their SPM betas could be explained as confounding by S.Implications: The combined effect of several pollutants can be estimated by including the appropriate pollutants in the same statistical model, summing their individual betas to give a combined beta, and using a variance-covariance matrix to obtain the standard error. This approach identifies and reduces confounding among the species in the multipollutant model and can be used to identify confounded species that have no independent relationship with mortality. The effect of several pollutants acting together may be higher than that of one pollutant. Further work is needed to understand the strong relationship of mortality with particulate mercury and sulfate.

L-Shaped Association Between Daily food Selenium Intake and Erectile Dysfunction Among Adult Male in the United States: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Dawd Gashu et al found that selenium de ciency may affect thyroid function [31]. Selenium is involved in the formation of the strong antioxidant enzyme glutathione peroxidase, which scavenges lipid peroxides in the body, binds to low-density lipoprotein and very low-density lipoprotein, alleviates hypercholesterolemia and hypertriglyceridemia, regulates blood lipids, and reduces blood viscosity [32]. Selenium and selenoproteins affects the maintenance of redox balance and normal function of endothelial cells [33].…”

Hypothesis: Initiating new paths to study mechanisms of anxiety disorders and chronic pain for novel treatment development.

“…Furthermore, zinc has been shown to act as an anti-oxidant and to be involved in membrane stabilization suggesting a role in prevention of free radical-induced damaging especially during inflammatory processes 52 . Additionally, it is known that many environmental stressors such as pollution can lead to a chronic immune response dysregulation especially affected during development [53][54][55][56][57] . Underlying affected mechanisms induced by the described factors could be DNA methylation, which control key aspects of immune responses regulating peripheral immune system effector cell development, in which especially DNMT1 and DNMT3b seem to play a major role specially during development 58 .…”