Air pollution linked to hardening of the arteries

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/uom-apl042413.php

Public release date: 24-Apr-2013
Contact: Laurel Thomas Gnagey
University of Michigan

Long-term exposure to air pollution may be linked to heart attacks and strokes by speeding up atherosclerosis, or "hardening of the arteries," according to a University of Michigan public health researcher and colleagues from across the U.S.

Sara Adar, the John Searle Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health, and Joel Kaufman, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and medicine at the University of Washington, led the study that found that higher concentrations of fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) were linked to a faster thickening of the inner two layers of the common carotid artery—an important blood vessel that provides blood to the head, neck and brain.

Conversely, they found that reductions of fine particulate air pollution over time were linked to slower progression of the blood vessel thickness.

Their research is published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

The thickness of this blood vessel is an indicator of how much atherosclerosis is present in the arteries throughout the body, even among people with no obvious symptoms of heart disease.

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