Link between city pollution and heart damage revealed

At the annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Boston, scientists revealed a link between heart damage and city pollution from car exhausts.

Scientists have also found evidence connecting smoke from tobacco and fires to heart attacks, clogged arteries and cardiovascular disease.

Scientists spoke of the requirement for increased regulation to curb the effects of pollution; references were made to the fact that environmental regulations are often ignored in modernising areas in favour of improving economic growth.

Evidence has been provided proving that air pollution can amplify the long-term risk of cardiovascular disease and can provoke heart attacks shortly after being exposed to traffic.

John Incardona, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, spoke of a type of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) that has been overlooked by scientists.

PAHs are created when materials including wood, coal or tobacco burn and several of the larger types are carcinogenic. Incardona’s research has shown that the smallest PAH molecules, to be found in oil, are toxic to the hearts of zebrafish. The developing hearts of zebrafish are used as a standard model for the effects of chemicals on human hearts.

Incardona spoke of the evidence that airborne PAH distribution reflects what is in oil and its refined products. He thinks that the levels of chemicals produced when oil is burned are high enough to be pharmacologically active in the human bloodstream.

A study by Lung Chi Chen, from the New York University School of Medicine, found that when a group of mice were exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke equal to passively smoking 3-4 cigarettes a day, and another to the particles present in air pollution in concentrations akin to those of a large city, both particles and smoke resulted in roughly the same amount of artery hardening that can result in heart attacks.