Cardio-Respiratory Effects of Air Pollution in a Panel Study of Outdoor Physical Activity and Health in Rural Older Adults

Abstract

Objective:To examine cardio-respiratory effects of air pollution in rural older adults exercising outdoors.Methods:Adults 55 and over completed measurements of blood pressure, peak expiratory flow and oximetry daily, and of heart rate variability, endothelial function, spirometry, fraction of exhaled nitric oxide and urinary oxidative stress markers weekly, before and after outdoor exercise, for 10 weeks. Data were analyzed using linear mixed effect models.Results:Pooled estimates combining 2013 (n = 36 participants) and 2014 (n = 41) indicated that an interquartile increase in the air quality health index (AQHI) was associated with a significant (P < 0.05) increase in heart rate (2.1%) and significant decreases in high frequency power (−19.1%), root mean square of successive differences (−9.5%), and reactive hyperemia index (−6.5%).Conclusions:We observed acute subclinical adverse effects of air pollution in rural older adults exercising outdoors.

Associations between air pollution and cardio-respiratory physiological measures in older adults exercising outdoors

“…studies of summer and winter outdoor physical activity in older adults conducted in a predominantly rural area and small northern industrial city, respectively (Stieb et al 2017(Stieb et al , 2018. These findings provided evidence supporting the utility of the AQHI in predicting health risks for diverse health outcomes and types of communities not accounted for in developing the AQHI, which was based on the effects of air pollution on mortality in large urban centres.…”

“…We accounted for effects of time (trend and temporal cycles) using a linear function of time and day of week variables. In a previous study, we found no consistent associations with subdaily air pollution exposures in the hours prior to health measures (Stieb et al 2017), thus only daily 3-h maximum exposures (daily maximum of 3-h trailing averages) were considered. Air pollution variables were entered into models at individual lags of 0-2 days, each with natural spline functions of temperature with 3 degrees of freedom at individual lags of 0-2 days (9 models per pollutant).…”

“…Methods were described in detail in our previous papers reporting findings from our summer and winter panel studies (Stieb et al 2017(Stieb et al , 2018. They are summarized briefly here.…”

“…For weekly measures, pre-exercise measures were carried out up to 1.5 h before and 2 h after exercise. Details of instrumentation and measurement protocols are described elsewhere (Stieb et al 2017). We asked participants to engage in daily light exercise (e.g.…”

Acute Effects of Air Pollution and Noise from Road Traffic in a Panel of Young Healthy Subjects

“…The acute effects of air pollutants have been demonstrated repeatedly in respiratory [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] and cardiovascular patients [16][17][18][19][20][21]. Such panel studies have been performed in the elderly [22][23][24][25] and in areas with high air pollution [1,14,[26][27][28][29][30], but less so in young and healthy people in settings with moderate to low air pollution levels [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. We recruited healthy students from Vienna to study the physiological reactions of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems when exposed to everyday urban air pollution.…”