Atmospheric Interactions and Cardiac Arrhythmias

Department of Cardiology, University Hospital Center Split, Split, Croatia

About This Article open

Citation: Čulić V. 2015. Atmospheric interactions and cardiac arrhythmias. Environ Health Perspect 123:A144; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1409636
E-mail: [e-mail]
The author declares he has no actual or potential competing financial interests.
Final Publication: 1 June 2015

PDF Version (85 KB)
Although plausible pathophysiological mechanisms link air pollution to arrhythmogenesis, among them altered autonomic tone, repolarization abnormalities, oxidative stress, myocardial ischemia, and increased intracardiac pressure (Link and Dockery 2010), definitive conclusions have not been reached as yet. Langrish et al. (2014) analyzed 13 double-blind randomized crossover studies and found no significant risk of arrhythmia attributable to acute controlled exposure to air pollutants. Three issues related to meteorological factors probably either confound or modify the short-term association between air pollution and cardiac arrhythmia.
First, several meteorological elements, including air temperature, atmospheric pressure, relative air moisture, and wind speed and direction, also are implicated in triggering ventricular (Čulić et al. 2004, 2005) and supraventricular (Čulić et al. 2012, 2013) arrhythmias independent of physical and emotional stress. In the short term, those meteorological factors may facilitate arrhythmias in susceptible patient...

Source: EHP Research - June 1, 2015 Category: Environmental Health Authors: Web Admin Tags: Correspondence June 2015 Source Type: research