Association of Short-term Ambient Air Pollution Concentrations and Ventricular Arrhythmias

Abstract

The authors evaluated the association between ventricular arrhythmias detected by implantable cardioverter defibrillators and ambient air pollution concentrations in the hours immediately before the arrhythmia. Patients given implantable cardioverter defibrillators at the New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, between mid-1995 and 1999 who lived within 40 km of a central monitoring site (n = 203) were followed until July 2002. The authors used a case-crossover design to study the association between ambient air pollution and up to 798 confirmed ventricular arrhythmias among 84 subjects. The authors found that interquartile range increases in 24-hour moving average particulate matter less than 2.5 mum in aerodynamic diameter and ozone were associated with 19% and 21% increased risks of ventricular arrhythmia, respectively. For each, there was evidence of a linear exposure response, and the associations appeared independent. These associations were stronger than associations with mean concentrations on the same calendar day and previous calendar days. The authors did not find associations with pollutant concentrations less than 24 hours before the arrhythmia. Cases with a prior ventricular arrhythmia within 72 hours had greater risk associated with air pollutants than did cases without a recent arrhythmia. These results confirm previous findings and suggest that matching of pollution periods to arrhythmias is important in detecting such associations.

A fast‐responsive fluorescent probe for sulfite and its bioimaging

“…At the same time, the detection limit (S/N = 3) of probe Coumarin-SO 2 can be as low as 0.08 μM in PBS (pH 7.4, containing 2% DMSO), suggesting that probe Coumarin-SO 2 is potentially useful for the quantitative determination of SO 3 2-with a large dynamic range and has high sensitivity in physiological conditions. Probe Coumarin 343-SO 2 showed similarity with Coumarin-SO 2 (Fig. 3), however, its solubility is relatively poor and there will be precipitation in the test process.…”

“…It has been widely used to inhibit fresh fruit and vegetable degradation and as a general food preservative due to its antimicrobial, bacteriostasis and antioxidant abilities (1,2). When SO 2 is dissolved in water, it forms a pH-dependent equilibrium mixture with sulfite and bisulfite ions.…”

“…In addition, endogenous SO 3 2-and HSO 3 -can be metabolically generated from thiol-containing amino acids, such as cysteine and glutathione (3). However, frequent exposure to excessive levels of SO 2 and its derivatives not only induces a variety of respiratory diseases (chronic bronchitis, asthma, emphysema, etc. ), but is also related to lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurological disorders, such as migraine headaches, strokes and brain cancer (4,5).…”

“…Here, we report two probes for SO 3 2-via a nucleophilic addition reaction (Scheme 1) that exhibit a fast response, high sensitivity with large fluorescence enhancement and low detection limit, 2 or Coumarin 343-SO2 (5 μM) in 3 mL pH 7.4, 20 mM phosphate buffer: DMSO 98 : 2 v/v, was prepared by placing 0.05 mL of the sensor stock solution, 0.06 mL DMSO and 2.94 mL of 25 mM sodium phosphate buffer (pH 7.4). Solutions of various testing species were prepared from Na 2 SO 3 , CH 3 COONa, NaF, NaCl, KBr, KI, Na 2 CO 3 , NaN 3 , NO, NaNO 2 , NaNO 3 , KH 2 PO 4 , Na 2 SO 4 , H 2 O 2 , HOCl, KSCN -, Na 2 S, cysteine and glutathione, respectively.…”

Nasal instillation of nanoparticle-rich diesel exhaust particles slightly affects emotional behavior and learning capability in rats

“…Exposure of patients to PM increases respiratory disorders (Neas et al, 1995;Wong et al, 1999), cancer (Ito and Thurston, 1996) and arrhythmia (Rich et al, 2005). Also, it has been reported that a higher atmospheric black carbon concentration, a marker for traffic-generated particles, causes a decrease in cognitive function in children (Suglia et al, 2008).…”