A team of researchers has taken advantage of the unique circumstances surrounding the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China to examine the link between air pollution and health. The result of their study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows a direct correlation between pollution levels and specific physiological changes that increase risk for cardiovascular disease.
This study clearly shows that a large scale intervention to reduce air pollution can have an immediate positive effect on health,
said David Q. Rich, Sc.D., M.P.H., first author of the study and an epidemiologist with the University of Rochester Medical Center Department of Community and Preventive Medicine. As air quality improved during the games in Beijing, markers of key biological pathways associated with cardiovascular disease also improved, demonstrating that – even in healthy young Beijing residents – there are specific mechanistic links between air pollution and cardiovascular health.