A study by the European Society of Cardiology(ESC) has revealed that exceeding the World Health Organization’s (WHO) ozone limit is linked to an increase in hospital admissions for heart attacks, heart failure, and stroke.
The study, authored by Prof. Shaowei Wu of Xi’an Jiaotong University, China, was published in the European Heart Journal, a publication of ESC, and posted on its website on Friday.
According to Wu, even ozone levels below the WHO maximum are linked with worsened health.
In his words, “During this three-year study, ozone was responsible for an increasing proportion of admissions for cardiovascular disease as time progressed.
“It is believed that climate change, by creating atmospheric conditions favouring ozone formation, will continue to raise concentrations in many parts of the world.
“Our results indicate that older people are particularly vulnerable to the adverse cardiovascular effects of ozone, meaning that worsening ozone pollution with climate change and the rapid ageing of the global population may produce even greater risks of cardiovascular disease in the future.”
The author noted that the study examined the association between ambient ozone pollution and hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease.
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He said that data on daily hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease between 2015 to 2017 in 70 cities in China were collected from the two main national health insurance systems.
According to him, during the study period, there were 6.44 million hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease in the 70 cities and the average daily eight-hour maximum ozone concentration was 79.2 μg/m3.
“Exposure to ambient ozone was associated with increased hospital admissions for all cardiovascular diseases studied except haemorrhagic stroke, independent of other air pollutants,” he said.
He said that although these increases appeared modest, ozone levels might rise to more than 200 g/m3 during the summer.
Wu noted that these increases in hospitalizations would be 20 times more pronounced, reaching over 8% for stroke and 15% for acute myocardial infarction.
He emphasized that if levels were below 100 g/m3, additional reductions would occur at lower concentrations, and significant numbers of hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease may be avoided.
According to Prof. Thomas Münzel, co-author of the study, there is a strong correlation between climate change and air quality, thus cutting emissions over time to combat global warming would be crucial to reducing ozone pollution and enhancing the quality of the air we breathe.
Story was adapted from Enviro News
