Exceeding the World Health Organization (WHO) ozone limit significantly increases hospital admissions for heart attack, heart failure and stroke, according to a new study.
The first evidence of this connection has been published in the European Heart Journal.
The study noted that ozone levels below the WHO maximum level were also associated with poorer health.
“During this three-year study, ozone was responsible for an increasing proportion of heart disease admissions as time progressed,” said study author Professor Shaowei Wu from Xi’an Jiaotong University in China.
“It is believed that climate change, by creating atmospheric conditions that favor ozone formation, will continue to increase concentrations in many parts of the world.
Wu said, “Our results suggest that older people are particularly vulnerable to the adverse cardiovascular effects of ozone, which means that ozone pollution is likely to worsen in the future with climate change and the rapid aging of the global population.” may pose an even greater risk of cardiovascular disease.”
Ozone is a gas and is the main air pollutant in photochemical smog. Ozone pollution is different from the ozone layer, which absorbs most of the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation.
Ozone pollution is formed when other pollutants react in the presence of sunlight.
These other pollutants are volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides emitted by motor vehicles, power plants, industrial boilers, refineries, chemical plants, and biomass and fossil fuel burning facilities.
Previous studies have suggested that ozone pollution damages the heart and blood vessels, but there is limited and inconclusive evidence regarding its effect on heart disease risk.
It said this study examined the association between ambient ozone pollution and hospitalization for heart disease.
Data on daily hospitalizations for cardiovascular disease during 2015 to 2017 in 70 cities in China were collected from the two main national health insurance systems.
During the study period, the two databases included approximately 258 million, 258 million, people from 70 cities, equivalent to more than 18 percent of China’s population.
Types of heart disease include coronary heart disease, stroke and heart failure, plus subtypes such as angina, acute myocardial infarction, acute coronary syndrome, ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke.
Daily eight-hour maximum average concentrations of ozone, fine particulate matter (PM 2.5), respirable particulate matter (PM 10), sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide for each city from China’s national urban air quality real-time publication platform was obtained. , the study said.
During the study period, 70 cities had 64,44,441 hospitalizations for heart disease and the average daily eight-hour maximum ozone concentration was 79.2 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3).
Exposure to ambient ozone was associated with an increase in hospital admissions for all cardiovascular diseases studied except hemorrhagic stroke, independent of other air pollutants.
For example, each 10 ug/m3 increase in two-day average eight-hour maximum ozone concentrations was associated with a 0.40 percent increase in hospital admissions for stroke and a 0.75 percent increase in acute myocardial infarction.
“Although these increases appear modest, it should be noted that summer ozone levels can exceed 200 ug/m3, and these increases in hospitalizations are more than 20-fold for stroke at 8 percent and 15 percent for for acute myocardial infarction,” Wu said.
During 2015 to 2017, 3.42 percent, 3.74 percent, and 3.02 percent of hospitalizations for coronary heart disease, heart failure, and stroke, respectively, were due to ozone pollution.
When each year was analyzed separately, the ratio increased over time.
For coronary heart disease, ozone was responsible for 109,400 of the 3,194,577 admissions over three years.
“This suggests that 109,400 coronary heart disease admissions could be avoided if ozone concentrations were 0 ug/m3. This may be impossible to achieve given the presence of ozone from natural sources.
“However, we can conclude that a substantial number of hospitalizations for heart disease could be avoided if the levels were less than 100 ug/m3,” Wu said.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)