A New Study Shows How Seriously Air Pollution Can Affect Your Heartbeat

For China’s 1.4 billion people, the simple act of breathing has long been something of a risk. Living in the ninth-dirtiest country in the world in terms of air quality, China’s residents lose an average of 2.6 years of life per capita due to atmospheric pollution alone. The greatest risk, of course, is pulmonary, with air pollution leading to shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing, asthma episodes, and chest pain. But pollution affects the heart too; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that exposure to fine-particulate matter as well as to nitrogen oxides alone can lead to premature aging in blood vessels as well as rapid buildup of calcium in the coronary artery. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Now, a new study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal has closely tied air pollution linked to the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal, to another heart risk: arrhythmia, or irregular changes in heartbeat. The study not only found that exposure to air pollution leads to arrhythmias—but that it leads to them quickly, with the heart responding in real time to changes in air quality in a given location. That’s bad news, as arrhythmias can result in blood clots, stroke, heart failure, and even sudden death in some cases. “We found that acute exposure to ambient air pollution was associated with increased risk of symptomatic arrhythmia,” said Dr. Renjie Chen, of Fudan University in Shanghai, one of the paper’...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change Climate Is Everything Environment healthscienceclimate Source Type: news