BMI was a significant predictor of atopy, allergic symptoms and BHR in teenage girls.

We conducted a study on two panels of human subjects—9 young adults and 10 elderly patients with lung function impairments—to evaluate whether submicrometer particulate air pollution was associated with heart rate variability (HRV). We measured these subjects’ electrocardiography and personal exposure to number concentrations of submicrometer particles with a size range of 0.02–1 μm (NC0.02–1) continuously during daytime periods. We used linear mixed-effects models to estimate the relationship between NC0.02–1 and log10-transformed HRV, including standard deviation of all normal-to-normal intervals (SDNN), square root of the mean of the sum of the squares of differences between adjacent NN intervals (r-MSSD), low frequency (LF, 0.04–0.15 Hz), and high frequency (HF, 0.15–0.40 Hz), adjusted for age, sex, body mass index, tobacco exposure, and temperature. For the young panel, a 10,000-particle/cm3 increase in NC0.02–1 with 1–4 hr moving average exposure was associated with 0.68–1.35% decreases in SDNN, 1.85–2.58% decreases in r-MSSD, 1.32–1.61% decreases in LF, and 1.57–2.60% decreases in HF. For the elderly panel, a 10,000-particle/cm3 increase in NC0.02–1 with 1–3 hr moving average exposure was associated with 1.72–3.00% decreases in SDNN, 2.72–4.65% decreases in r-MSSD, 3.34–5.04% decreases in LF, and 3.61–5.61% decreases in HF. In conclusion, exposure to NC0.02–1 was associated with decreases in both time-domain and frequency-domain HRV indices in human subjects.

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For a long time uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) has been used to treat the obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS). The diverse surgical effects, the inadequate understanding of operation effect consistency, the possibility of disease progression, and the few reported papers for long-term evaluation after UPPP aroused our interest in designing this study. Fifteen OSAS patients who had undergone UPPP with pre-operative, initial post-operative and long-term post-operative polysomnographic studies were included in this study. Long-term post-operative polysomnography was undertaken more than five years after surgery. The polysomnographic evaluations included respiratory disturbance index (RD I), duration of saturation SaO2 <85 per cent (DOS), and the lowest O2 saturation (LOS). Amongst them, 10 patients with initial post-operative RDI reduction > 50 per cent were considered responders. In these responders, the long-term follow-up results of all three parameters showed improvement compared to the preoperative data. In a comparison between the initial and long-term post-operative sleep study results, LOS and DOS showed no significant difference. However, the long-term post-operative RDI result became significantly worse. More than 80 per cent of all cases had subjective symptomatic improvement in the long-term post-operative evaluation. The subjective improvement after operation is not adequately correlated to the polysomnographic result. We suggest that long-term follow-up for patients after UPPP is necessary.

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