1. Long-term exposure to air pollution and precocious puberty in South Korea.
- Author
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Oh J, Choi JE, Lee R, Mun E, Kim KH, Lee JH, Lee J, Kim S, Kim HS, and Ha E
- Subjects
- Humans, Republic of Korea epidemiology, Child, Female, Male, Retrospective Studies, Child, Preschool, Ozone analysis, Ozone adverse effects, Puberty, Precocious epidemiology, Puberty, Precocious chemically induced, Air Pollution adverse effects, Air Pollutants analysis, Air Pollutants adverse effects, Air Pollutants toxicity, Particulate Matter analysis, Particulate Matter adverse effects, Environmental Exposure adverse effects
- Abstract
Background and Aim: The increasing prevalence of precocious puberty (PP) has emerged as a significant medical and social problem worldwide. However, research on the relationship between long-term air pollution exposure and PP has been relatively limited. We thus investigated the association between long-term air pollution exposure and the onset of PP in South Korea., Methods: We investigated a retrospective cohort using the Korea National Health Insurance Database. Six-year-old children born from 2007 to 2009 were examined (2013-2015). We included boys ≤10 years and girls aged ≤9 years who visited hospitals for early pubertal development, were diagnosed with PP per the ICD-10 (E228, E301, and E309), and received gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist treatment. We analyzed data for boys up until 10 years old (60-month follow-up) and for girls up to 9 years old (48-month follow-up). We assessed the association between long-term air pollution exposure and the onset of PP using a Cox proportional hazard model. We estimated hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) per 1 μg/m
3 increase in fine particulate matter (PM2.5 ) and particulate matter (PM10 ) and per 1 ppb increase in sulfur dioxide (SO2 ), nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ), and ozone (O3 )., Results: This study included 1,205,784 children aged six years old between 2013 and 2015. A positive association was found between the 48-month moving average PM2.5 (HR: 1.019; 95% CI: 1.012, 1.027), PM10 (HR: 1.009; 95% CI: 1.006, 1.013), SO2 (HR: 1.037; 95% CI: 1.018, 1.055), and O3 (HR: 1.006; 95% CI: 1.001, 1.010) exposure and PP in girls but not boys., Conclusions: This study provides valuable insights into the harmful effects of air pollution during childhood and adolescence, emphasizing that air pollution is a risk factor that should be managed and reduced., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)- Published
- 2024
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