The accumulation of fats, cholesterol and other substances inside the arteries causes atherosclerosis, a disease characterized by a narrowing of the arteries that makes blood circulation difficult and can cause blood clots to form, among other complications. Hypercholesterolemia and hypertension are some of the causes of atherosclerosis that can be modified, and new research has found that exposure to air pollution is also a risk factor for developing this disease.
The study has been led by Sergio Valdés and Gemma Rojo Martínez, from the Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Diseases area of the CIBER (CIBERDEM) and belonging to the Regional University Hospital of Málaga and the Biomedical Research Institute of Málaga-IBIMA-BIONAND Platform and its results. show a relationship between blood lipid levels and exposure to air pollutants. This relationship suggests, in turn, a link between atmospheric pollution and atherosclerosis.
Air pollution has generally been associated with respiratory pathologies, but new work suggests that it also has a harmful impact on blood lipid levels and may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. The findings have been published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified air pollution as the biggest environmental health risk worldwide, responsible for 4.2 million deaths each year, more than half of which are due to diseases. ischemic heart disease and strokes. Atmospheric pollution can affect the cardiovascular system through, for example, processes of inflammation and systemic and pulmonary oxidative stress or dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system.
Improving air quality would reduce cardiovascular risk
Previous research had shown how alterations in lipid metabolism could be an indication of the association between air pollution and arteriosclerosis, but this study has gone one step further by analyzing not only the lipid level, but also the number and size of the lipoprotein particles that transport these lipids in the blood.
The researchers analyzed data from 4,647 adults from all over Spain, from the national population-based study di@bet.es, a pioneering CIBERDEM initiative carried out between 2008-2010 and 2015-2017 and which measured the prevalence and incidence of type 2 diabetes and other metabolic diseases in the adult population in Spain as a whole.
In addition to a physical examination and a blood sample, information was collected on age, sex, educational level, smoking habit, alcohol consumption, diet (frequency, adherence to the Mediterranean diet, etc.), body mass index or daily physical activity, among others. Data on exposure to pollutants were obtained from the work of collaborators at the Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (CIEMAT).
The results point to a lipid profile with a tendency towards arteriosclerotic development in people exposed to a higher degree of pollution.
Specifically, they studied the association for each participant of the average concentrations of airborne polluting particles (particles with an aerodynamic diameter less than 10 or 2.5 microns) at their home in the years of the study and the concentration of nitrogen dioxide in the air. .
The results showed a significant association between exposure to various air pollutants and several standard or new measures of blood lipoproteins, which points to a lipid profile with a tendency towards arteriosclerotic development in people exposed to a higher degree of pollution, and could even indicate a risk factor for the development or suffering of cardiovascular diseases.
“These results represent an important step as it is a research based on a large sample of the population, with numerous clinical, demographic and lifestyle variables, in addition to including innovative methods for measuring lipoproteins in the blood,” declared Sergio Valdés. Gemma Rojo, for her part, highlights the importance of improving air quality in our populations to reduce cardiovascular risk.
The national nature of the sample allows us to extrapolate results more reliably than local or regional studies, which increases the value of the results as evidence to be used in public health policies and actions regarding pathologies such as diabetes, which in Spain affects around of 15% of the adult population, or cardiovascular diseases, which are responsible for approximately 30% of deaths in our country.
Source: Center for Biomedical Research Network (CIBER)
