Extended waves of extreme heat and elevated levels of particulate matter, a dangerous pollutant, may combine to significantly raise the risk of a fatal heart attack, a study found.
Research published Monday in the American Heart Association’s flagship journal, Circulation, analyzed more than 202,000 heart attack deaths in China between 2015 and 2020 and discovered a strong connection between extreme temperatures, heavy pollution and deadly heart attacks, especially among women and older adults.
The findings bolster a growing body of research tying hazards worsened by human-induced greenhouse gas emissions to adverse health impacts.
“Extreme temperature events are becoming more frequent, longer and more intense, and their adverse health effects have drawn growing concern,” Dr. Yuewei Liu, a senior author of the study and an associate professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, said in a release. “Another environmental issue worldwide is the presence of fine particulate matter in the air, which may interact synergistically with extreme temperatures to adversely affect cardiovascular health.”
To quantify the impact of high heat with and without heightened pollution levels, the researchers focused on Jiangsu province in China, which typically has distinct seasons and a wide range of temperatures and particulate matter presence.
Temperatures were assessed using heat index, which combines base temperatures and humidity, and levels of particulate matter, known as PM2.5, were considered high if they surpassed the threshold of 37.5 micrograms per cubic meter. Particulate matter can come from a range of sources, from factories and cars to construction sites and trucks.
Heart attack deaths were then compared on the same day of the week in the same month across the span of the study. If, for example, a death occurred on the second Monday of August in 2015, the second Monday in Augusts that followed would be…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply