Air pollution and cardiovascular disease: Investigating pre-clinical and clinical effects of low levels of air pollution on ectopic adipose tissue, cardiovascular disease, and cognitive function
Description: Over time, exposure to air pollution increases the risk of early death, mostly from diseases of the heart, even in Canada, a country with relatively "clean air". Each year, 15,300 Canadians die prematurely from air pollution, but how air pollution causes heart disease to begin is still not clear. In the same way, air pollution is also associated with poor brain health, but we don't know how this occurs. Using high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we can learn about how these diseases progress in healthy people exposed to air pollution. We have performed MRI scans of the heart, brain, and abdomen in 8,000 healthy adult Canadians. We also have measured 3 common air pollutants around these same people's home address. These pollutants are fine particulate matter (made by factories, power plants, industries, and automobiles), ozone, and nitrogen dioxide. We will bring together this information to: 1) Learn whether exposure to low-levels of air pollutants is linked to changes in belly and liver fat, narrowing of the arteries, changes to the heart's ability to pump, brain injury, and worsening cognitive function. 2) Discover how neighbourhood features might dampen the harmful effects of air pollution, for example, access to safe walking paths, and the presences of trees. 3) Link this information to Canadian healthcare databases to understand whether a person's years long exposure to air pollution increases risk of future heart and brain diseases, such as heart attack, stroke, and dementia. By understanding the effects of air pollution on heart and brain health, we can inform Canadian policy changes that reduce carbon emissions and promote heart and brain health, and support efforts to ensure Canada meets or exceeds global air quality guidelines, and reduce air pollution-related deaths, disease, and disability. What we learn from this study will help plan and design "healthy" cities of the future.
Amount: CA$100,000
Funding type: research
Funder scheme: Project Grant - Priority Announcement: Data Analysis using CanPath or CANUE data for Cancer Prevention and Control Research
Start date: 2023-03-01
End date: 2024-02-29
Investigator: Russell De Souza
Institution: McMaster University
Subfield: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Funded outputs count: 0
Funder award ID: 185705_1
OpenAlex ID: G5758482140