Association of short-term fine particulate matter exposure with pulmonary function in populations at intermediate to high-risk of cardiovascular disease: A panel study in three Chinese cities.

Background: Decline in pulmonary function contributes to increasing cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Although adverse effects of short-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM _2.5 ) on pulmonary function have been recognized in healthy people or patients with respiratory disease, these results were not well illustrated among people with elevated CVD risk.
Materials and Methods: A panel study was conducted in three Chinese cities with three repeated visits among populations at intermediate to high-risk of CVD, defined as treated hypertension patients or those with blood pressure ≥ 130/80 mmHg, who met any of the three conditions including abdominal obesity, dyslipidemia, and diabetes mellitus. Individualized PM _2.5 exposure and pulmonary function were measured during each seasonal visit. Linear mixed-effect models were applied to analyze the associations of PM _2.5 concentrations with pulmonary function indicators, including forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV ₁ ), FEV ₁ /forced vital capacity (FVC), maximal mid-expiratory flow (MMF), and peak expiratory flow (PEF).
Results: Short-term PM _2.5 exposure was significantly associated with decreased pulmonary function and an increment of 10 μg/m ³ in PM _2.5 concentrations during lag 12-24 hour was associated with declines of 41.7 ml/s (95% confidence interval [CI]: 7.7-75.7), 0.35% (95% CI: 0.01, 0.69), and 20.9 ml/s (95% CI: 0.5-41.3) for PEF, FEV ₁ /FVC, and MMF, respectively. Results from stratified and sensitivity analyses were generally similar with the overall findings, while the adverse effects of PM _2.5 on pulmonary functions were more pronounced in those who were physically inactive.
Conclusions: This study first identified short-term exposure to PM _2.5 was associated with impaired pulmonary function and physical activity might attenuate the adverse effects of PM _2.5 among populations at intermediate to high-risk of CVD. These findings provide new robust evidence on health effects of air pollution and call for effective prevention measures among people at CVD risk.
(Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.)