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. 2015 Aug;123(8):785-91.
doi: 10.1289/ehp.1408224. Epub 2015 Mar 27.

Air Pollution from Road Traffic and Systemic Inflammation in Adults: A Cross-Sectional Analysis in the European ESCAPE Project

Timo Lanki  1 , Regina Hampel, Pekka Tiittanen, Silke Andrich, Rob Beelen, Bert Brunekreef, Julia Dratva, Ulf De Faire, Kateryna B Fuks, Barbara Hoffmann, Medea Imboden, Pekka Jousilahti, Wolfgang Koenig, Amir A Mahabadi, Nino Künzli, Nancy L Pedersen, Johanna Penell, Göran Pershagen, Nicole M Probst-Hensch, Emmanuel Schaffner, Christian Schindler, Dorothea Sugiri, Wim J R Swart, Ming-Yi Tsai, Anu W Turunen, Gudrun Weinmayr, Kathrin Wolf, Tarja Yli-Tuomi, Annette Peters
Affiliations

Air Pollution from Road Traffic and Systemic Inflammation in Adults: A Cross-Sectional Analysis in the European ESCAPE Project

Timo Lanki et al. Environ Health Perspect. 2015 Aug.

Abstract

Background: Exposure to particulate matter air pollution (PM) has been associated with cardiovascular diseases.

Objectives: In this study we evaluated whether annual exposure to ambient air pollution is associated with systemic inflammation, which is hypothesized to be an intermediate step to cardiovascular disease.

Methods: Six cohorts of adults from Central and Northern Europe were used in this cross-sectional study as part of the larger ESCAPE project (European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects). Data on levels of blood markers for systemic inflammation-high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP) and fibrinogen-were available for 22,561 and 17,428 persons, respectively. Land use regression models were used to estimate cohort participants' long-term exposure to various size fractions of PM, soot, and nitrogen oxides (NOx). In addition, traffic intensity on the closest street and traffic load within 100 m from home were used as indicators of traffic air pollution exposure.

Results: Particulate air pollution was not associated with systemic inflammation. However, cohort participants living on a busy (> 10,000 vehicles/day) road had elevated CRP values (10.2%; 95% CI: 2.4, 18.8%, compared with persons living on a quiet residential street with < 1,000 vehicles/day). Annual NOx concentration was also positively associated with levels of CRP (3.2%; 95% CI: 0.3, 6.1 per 20 μg/m3), but the effect estimate was more sensitive to model adjustments. For fibrinogen, no consistent associations were observed.

Conclusions: Living close to busy traffic was associated with increased CRP concentrations, a known risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. However, it remains unclear which specific air pollutants are responsible for the association.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare they have no actual or potential competing financial interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cohort-specific and pooled effect estimates (the main model) for the associations of NOx and traffic with inflammatory markers. veh, vehicles. Estimates calculated for a 20-μg/m3 increase in NOx. (A) NOx, traffic intensity at the nearest road, and CRP; (B) NOx, traffic load on major roads within 100 m, and fibrinogen.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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