Air Pollution Linked to Irregular Heartbeat and Lung Clots: The Dangers of Smog

Everyone knows that air pollution can affect your health. But did you know that it could be linked to irregular heartbeat and lung blood clots? Scientists have found that air pollution can affect your health in ways other than expected.

In this latest study, the researchers wanted to find out the short term biological impact of air pollution on cardiovascular disease. They used data from three national collections in England and Wales for the period 2003 to 2009, called the Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project (MINAP). This tracks hospital admissions for heart attack/stroke, hospital episode statistics on emergency admissions, and figures from the Office of National Statistics on recorded deaths.

Yet having this data wasn't enough. The researchers also needed to correlate it with air pollution. Air pollutants include carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), sulphur dioxide, and ozone. That's why researchers looked at data from the UK Meteorological Office.

In the end, there was no clear link with any air pollutant for cardiovascular deaths-with the exception of PM2.5. This was linked to an increased risk of irregular heart rhythms, irregular heart beat and blood clots in the lungs. The researchers also linked nitrogen dioxide with an increased risk of hospital admission for cardiovascular problems, including heart failure, and an increased risk of a non-ST elevation heart attack.

So what does this mean? There's no clear evidence implicating short term exposure to air pollution in boosting the risk of heart attacks and stroke. However, there is a clear link between particulate matter levels and a heightened risk of atrial fibrillation and pulmonary embolism.

The findings reveal that while air pollution may not affect our health in expected ways, it still does impact us. It highlights the importance of taking steps to curtail air pollution in order to help the health of the public in the future.

The findings are published in the journal Heart.