Cardiac Arrests Higher in Toxic Ozones, Destructive Molecules Spike Inflammation

It's no news that polluted air isn't good for you. Especially when trains and cars are clogging up the ozone, the ingestion of these air particles could lead to some serious health conditions in later life, and that is certainly true for cardiac arrests.

According to a recent study from Texas, toxic air pollutants, such as soot-like particles and ozone, can cause contribute whole-heartedly to the problem.

"Heart patients should consider when there are high ozone levels that they should take extra care of themselves," lead author Katherine Ensor of Rice University in Houston said, according to Reuters Health.

Statistics show that approximately 300,000 Americans experience cardiac arrest - when the heart abruptly stops and therefore can't get blood to the rest of the body - outside of hospitals each year and less than 10 percent survive. It can be caused by electrical problems in the heart muscle, sudden trauma or longstanding disease.

Previous studies have found that living in polluted cities or near highways for many years can raise the risk of heart disease in general, but this doesn't explain everything. The ozone is more often associated with short-term worsening of asthma and other lung diseases.

To see whether various air pollutants have any direct effect on cardiac arrest rates, Ensor and her colleagues compared a database of cardiac arrests that took place outside of hospitals in Houston with air quality records for the city between 2004 and 2011. Looking at 11,000 cardiac arrests, researchers found a slight rise of 4.4 percent for every 20 parts per billion of ozone

Though researchers don't fully understand how air pollution is connected to heart problems, some evidence suggests that irritants like particles and ozone entering the respiratory system create inflammation and a spike in destructive molecules called free radicals, which in turn can stress the heart.