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Acute effect of ambient ozone on heart rate variability in healthy elderly subjects

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 21, pages 541–547 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Acute ambient ozone (O3) exposure is associated with the increased mortality and morbidity of cardiovascular diseases. The dysfunction of cardiac autonomic nervous system (ANS), indicated by the disturbed heart rate variability (HRV), may be the most important underlying mechanism. Previous studies reported the heterogeneous associations between O3 within several hours’ exposure and HRV on general elderly subjects, in which poor surrogate of exposure evaluation and different health status of the subjects may be responsible for the heterogeneous associations. No studies were found focusing on the O3-mediated HRV effects within several minutes’ exposure on healthy older subjects until recently. We measured the real-time 5-min ambient O3 concentration and HRV frequency indices in 20 healthy elderly subjects in two surveys, with the 1st and 2nd survey in summer and winter, respectively. Mixed-linear model was used to evaluate the associations between the ambient 5-min average O3 and concurrent 5-min HRV frequency indices measured during the outdoor period. After adjusting the co-pollutants (ambient PM2.5 and nitrogen oxides concentrations) and subject characteristics, high frequency (HF) changed –4.87% (95% CI –8.62 to –0.97%) per 10 ppb increment of O3, whereas decreased low frequency (LF) and increased LFHFR were found to be marginally associated with the elevated O3 (P values were 0.092 and 0.069). We concluded that the ambient O3 exert transient decrease effects on HRV, which may induce acute cardiac events.

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Figure 1

Abbreviations

AIC:

Akaike's information criteria

ANS:

autonomic nervous system

μg/m3:

micrograms per cubic meter

BMI:

body mass index

CI:

confidence interval

ECG:

electrocardiogram

HF:

high frequency

HRV:

heart rate variability

kg/m2:

body weight in kilograms divided by height in square meters

LF:

low frequency

LFHFR:

low frequency/high frequency ratio

L/min:

liters per minute

msec:

millisecond

msec2:

square millisecond

NOx:

nitrogen oxides

O3:

ozone

PM2.5:

particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm

RH:

relative humidity

Temp:

temperature

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Acknowledgements

We thank all of the participating subjects and Juan Zhang for conducting the HRV measurements. This study was supported by Grants from the National Key Technologies R&D Program of China (No. 2006BAI19B06) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81072267).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peking University School of Public Health, Beijing, China

    Xiaofeng Jia, Xiaoming Song, Furong Deng & Xinbiao Guo

  2. Hyogo College of Medicine, Nishinomiya, Japan

    Masayuki Shima

  3. National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan

    Kenji Tamura

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  1. Xiaofeng Jia
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Correspondence to Xinbiao Guo.

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Full address of the institution where the work was performed: Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences, Peking University School of Public Health, 38 Xueyuan Road, Beijing 100191, China.

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Jia, X., Song, X., Shima, M. et al. Acute effect of ambient ozone on heart rate variability in healthy elderly subjects. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 21, 541–547 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2011.18

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Keywords

  • ozone
  • fine particulate matter
  • nitrogen oxides
  • heart rate variability
  • healthy elderly subject

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