| Title | Short-term differences in cardiac function following controlled exposure to cookstove air pollution: The subclinical tests on volunteers exposed to smoke (STOVES) study. | ||
| Author | Cole-Hunter, Tom; Dhingra, Radhika; Fedak, Kristen M; Good, Nicholas; L'Orange, Christian; Luckasen, Gary; Mehaffy, John; Walker, Ethan; Wilson, Ander; Balmes, John; Brook, Robert D; Clark, Maggie L; Devlin, Robert B; Volckens, John; Peel, Jennifer L | ||
| Journal | Environ Int | Publication Year/Month | 2021-Jan |
| PMID | 33221594 | PMCID | PMC7775898 |
| Affiliation + expend | 1.Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA; Centre for Air Pollution, Energy, and Health Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia; International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, QLD, Australia; Section of Environmental Health, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. | ||
BACKGROUND: Exposure to household air pollution from solid fuel combustion for cooking and heating is an important risk factor for premature death and disability worldwide. Current evidence supports an association of ambient air pollution with cardiovascular disease but is limited for household air pollution and for cardiac function. Controlled exposure studies can complement evidence provided by field studies. OBJECTIVES: To investigate effects of short-term, controlled exposures to emissions from five cookstoves on measures of cardiac function. METHODS: Forty-eight healthy adults (46% female; 20-36 years) participated in six, 2-h exposures (\'treatments\'), including emissions from five cookstoves and a filtered-air control. Target fine particulate matter (PM(2.5)) exposure-concentrations per treatment were: control, 0 microg/m(3); liquefied petroleum gas, 10 microg/m(3); gasifier, 35 microg/m(3); fan rocket, 100 microg/m(3); rocket elbow, 250 microg/m(3); and three stone fire, 500 microg/m(3). Participants were treated in a set (pre-randomized) sequence as groups of 4 to minimize order bias and time-varying confounders. Heart rate variability (HRV) and cardiac repolarization metrics were calculated as 5-min means immediately and at 3 h following treatment, for analysis in linear mixed-effects models comparing cookstove to control. RESULTS: Short-term differences in SDNN (standard deviation of duration of all NN intervals) and VLF (very-low frequency power) existed for several cookstoves compared to control. While all cookstoves compared to control followed a similar trend for SDNN, the greatest effect was seen immediately following three stone fire (beta = -0.13 ms %; 95% confidence interval = -0.22, -0.03%), which reversed in direction at 3 h (0.03%; -0.06, 0.13%). VLF results were similar in direction and timing to SDNN; however, other HRV or cardiac repolarization results were not similar to those for SDNN. DISCUSSION: We observed some evidence of short-term, effects on HRV immediately following cookstove treatments compared to control. Our results suggest that cookstoves with lower PM(2.5) emissions are potentially capable of affecting cardiac function, similar to stoves emitting higher PM(2.5) emissions.