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Title: Exposure to sub-chronic and long-term particulate air pollution and heart rate variability in an elderly cohort: the Normative Aging Study.

Authors: Mordukhovich, Irina; Coull, Brent; Kloog, Itai; Koutrakis, Petros; Vokonas, Pantel; Schwartz, Joel

Published In Environ Health, (2015 Nov 06)

Abstract: Short-term particulate air pollution exposure is associated with reduced heart rate variability (HRV), a risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, in many studies. Associations with sub-chronic or long-term exposures, however, have been sparsely investigated. We evaluated the effect of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon (BC) exposures on HRV in an elderly cohort: the Normative Aging Study.We measured power in high frequency (HF) and low frequency (LF), standard deviation of normal-to-normal intervals (SDNN), and the LF:HF ratio among participants from the Greater Boston area. Residential BC exposures for 540 men (1161 study visits, 2000-2011) were estimated using a spatio-temporal land use regression model, and residential PM2.5 exposures for 475 men (992 visits, 2003-2011) were modeled using a hybrid satellite based and land-use model. We evaluated associations between moving averages of sub-chronic (3-84 day) and long-term (1 year) pollutant exposure estimates and HRV parameters using linear mixed models.One-standard deviation increases in sub-chronic, but not long-term, BC were associated with reduced HF, LF, and SDNN and an increased LF:HF ratio (e.g., 28 day BC: -2.3% HF [95% CI:-4.6, -0.02]). Sub-chronic and long-term PM2.5 showed evidence of relations to an increased LF and LF:HF ratio (e.g., 1 year PM: 21.0% LF:HF [8.6, 34.8]), but not to HF or SDNN, though the effect estimates were very imprecise and mostly spanned the null.We observed some evidence of a relation between longer-term BC and PM2.5 exposures and changes in HRV in an elderly cohort. While previous studies focused on short-term air pollution exposures, our results suggest that longer-term exposures may influence cardiac autonomic function.

PubMed ID: 26546332 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Air Pollutants/toxicity*; Boston; Cohort Studies; Environmental Exposure*; Heart Rate/drug effects*; Humans; Linear Models; Male; Middle Aged; Particulate Matter/toxicity*; Risk Factors; Soot/toxicity; United States; Vehicle Emissions/toxicity*

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