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Study of Houston Region Shows Real Connection Between Smog & Increase in Heart Attacks

Posted byHoumanitarian

Matthew Tresaugue, Houston Chronicle
Smog can have a devastating effect on the heart, increasing the risk of cardiac arrest on days when the widespread air pollutant rises, a new Rice University study found.

Scientists have long known that ozone, or smog, can cause lung damage, asthma episodes and death, particularly in severely polluted places such as Houston. But the study in the current American Heart Association journal Circulation is the first effort to link daily and hourly ozone levels and an increased number of heart attacks.

Loren Raun, a Rice statistician and the report’s co-author, said that previous studies have found that heart attacks increase with a rise in tiny airborne particles, or soot. In contrast, ozone is a gas that is formed when sunlight cooks a mixture of chemicals emitted mostly by tailpipes and smokestacks.

The eight-county Houston region is a notorious smog-making machine because of its large concentration of industry, car-dependent lifestyle and climate. Once known as the nation’s smog capital, the area has made improvements in air quality over the past two decades but remains in violation of federal limits for ozone.

“It’s long been thought there was an association between air pollution and cardiac arrest, and this study brings statistical support to that suspicion” said Dr. James Willerson, president of the Texas Heart Institute.

The researchers looked at 11,677 cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest logged over eight years by emergency services personnel in Houston and cross-referenced the time and place with ozone measurements recorded at 47 locations.

The study concluded that during periods of peak pollution, the risk of heart attack increases by as much as 4.6 percent. The study also found that risks were higher for men, African-Americans and people 65 years and older. The cases of cardiac arrest appear throughout Houston, with slightly more found east of U.S. 59, the researchers said.

Overall, the scientists found a similar level of risk with increases in soot, but did not see a link between cardiac arrest and other air pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide.
(Read more of this story at the Houston Chronicle)

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