PM10 exposure interacts with abdominal obesity to increase blood triglycerides: a cross-sectional linkage study

Abstract

Background Blood lipids and glucose levels dysregulation represent potential mechanisms intermediating the adverse cardiovascular effects of ambient particulate matter (PM) exposure. This study aims to estimate the effect of long-term PM10 exposure on blood lipids and glucose levels and to assess the potential mediation and/or modification action of abdominal obesity (AO) (waist-to-height ratio). Methods Our study was based on 2,390 participants of the first Portuguese Health Examination Survey (INSEF, 2015) with available data on blood lipids and glucose parameters and living within a 30-km radius of an air quality monitoring station with available PM10 measurements. PM10 concentrations were acquired from the air quality monitoring network of the Portuguese Environment Agency. Generalized linear models were used to assess the effect of 1-year PM10 exposure on blood lipids and glucose levels. An interaction term was introduced in the models to test the modification action of AO. Results We found an association between PM10 and non-fasting blood triglycerides (TG) after adjustment for age, sex, education, occupation, lifestyles-related variables and temperature but only in participants with AO. Per each 1 µg/m3 PM10 increment, there was a 1.84% (95% confidence interval: 0.02–3.69) increase in TG. For the remaining blood lipid and glucose parameters, no associations were found. Conclusions Our study demonstrates that even at low levels of exposure, long-term PM10 exposure interacts with AO to increase blood TG. Our findings suggest that reducing both AO prevalence and PM10 below current standards would result in additional health benefits for the population.

The Classification, Related Hazards and Biomarkers of Particulate Matter

“…Long term exposure to PM 10 was associated to lung cancer development risks modified antiviral factors production of peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and increased viral replication of SARS-CoV-2 [11,12]. Exposure to PM 10 increased blood triglycerides even at low levels [13]. Anti-inflammatory compound biochanin A could alleviate PM 10 -induced acute pulmonary cell injury in vitro [14].…”

Association between Air Pollution and Lipid Profiles

“…TC was positively correlated with long-term exposure to particles with diameters ≤1.0 µm (PM 1 ), particles with diameters ≤2.5 µm (PM 2.5 ), PM 10 , and carbon monoxide (CO); TG was positively correlated with long-term exposure to PM 10 ; HDL-C was negatively correlated with long-term exposure to PM 1 , PM 10 , sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), and CO; and LDL-C was positively correlated with long-term exposure to PM 2.5 and PM 10 . Because air pollution persists and its harm to people is longterm, most studies are aimed at long-term air pollution exposure [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. A few studies have shown that short-term air pollution levels can also bring about changes in blood lipids [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35].…”

“…Many studies have reported that air pollutants are significantly associated with the increase in TG, TC, and LDL-C or the decrease in HDL-C. However, most studies reported that air pollution was associated with adverse changes in 1-3 lipid indexes, and the changes in the others are beneficial or not significant [6,10,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18]20,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]38,48]. A few studies reported that air pollution was associated with adverse changes in all four conventional lipid indexes [19,21,56], such as the study of Wang et al, which showed that a 10 µg/m 3 increase in PM 2.5 concentration was associated with a 0.92% increase in TC, a 2.23% increase in TG, a 3.04% increase in LDL-C, and a 2.03% decrease in HDL-C [19].…”

“…There are significant differences in the susceptibility of different populations to air pollution. Most studies believe that older people [16,18,21,24], people with a high-fat diet or high energy intake [20,26], and obese people [17,23,24,31,33] are more susceptible to air pollution. Although obesity is detrimental, the study of Kim et al showed that visceral fat, but not subcutaneous fat, had an interaction with air pollution [17], and the study of Gaio et al showed that abdominal obesity was associated with the susceptibility to air pollution [23].…”

Long-Term Exposure to PM10 Air Pollution Exaggerates Progression of Coronary Artery Disease

“…Previous studies sµggested PM acts as an environmental endocrine disruptor for blood glucose, including insulin resistance and lipid hemostasis, by increased adipokine secretion [14]. In their analysis, Marin-Palma et al [15] noticed the increased production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-1β and IL-6, with PM10 exposure.…”