Urban air pollution is associated with inflammation, oxidative stress, blood coagulation and autonomic dysfunction simultaneously in healthy young humans, with sulfate and O(3) as two major traffic-related pollutants contributing to such effects.

Changes in blood pressure, blood lipids, blood sugar and haematological markers of inflammation are associated with long-term exposure to ambient air pollutants. This might provide a link between air pollution and atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases.

Alterations of atherosclerotic indicators are associated with particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters <10 microm and ozone changes. This might provide a link between air pollution and progression of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases.

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.

Emergency admissions for cerebrovascular diseases among adults were positively associated with increasing urban air pollution levels of O(3) lagged 0 day and CO lagged 2 days in Taipei.

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