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Air pollution feeds premature death risk with diabetic women according to a recently published study featuring in the Journal of the American Heart Association.Air pollution feeds premature death risk with diabetic women according to a recently published study featuring in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Air pollution feeds premature death risk with diabetic women according to a recently published study featuring in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
The study is the first to study the link between exposure to air pollution and particulate matter to the health problems experienced by women. Air pollution is a mortality factor for 7 million premature deaths annually according to studies conducted by the World Health Organization. This staggering number amounts to 1 out of 8 premature deaths on a global scale. As it is the leading environmental health risk, air pollution and particulate matter is also a critical topic for scientific studies if the global number of premature deaths are to decrease.
The recently published study was conducted on a cohort of 114,537 women registered in the Nurses’ Health Study. The data in this study has been collected throughout 1989 and 2006. Previously, air pollution and exposure to particulate matter have been linked to a spike in premature deaths due to severe asthma, lung disease, decreased lung function, heart disease, heart attacks or arrhythmia. Considering the wide span of health issues aggravated by air pollution, relentless investigation on the matter is required.
The participants in the recent study were white women of middle and upper social and economic status, living across the U.S. Looking at each of the participants’ home address, the research team modeled exposure to particulate matter for each of the participants. In addition, the team crunched data on the the incidence of stroke, coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease for all the participants in the study.
The impact of particulate matter on the women’s health was divided in three groups, ranging from less exposure to high exposure. Throughout the three groups thus created, the risk of cardiovascular disease was observed to have increased slightly. However, the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease when diabetic women were considered spiked worryingly for each 10 mg per cubic meter of air. As such, the researchers concluded that air pollution feeds premature death risk with diabetic women.
The study also adjusted for smoking, family history and other factors. However, none of these influenced the results. Both air pollution and diabetes are critical health-affecting factors. Against this background, it is necessary that groups most at risk are timely identified.
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