SCTIMST launches multi-centric study on air pollution and heart health

The Hindu

2 days ago

The Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) has launched a new study o explore whether cleaner indoor air can lead to better health outcomes for heart failure patients.
Air pollution is increasingly being recognised as a serious threat to heart health, contributing to heart failure and other cardiovascular conditions.
Higher levels of ambient air pollution, especially particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less (PM 2.5) are specifically placed as a serious environmental risk factor for morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular diseases. Other pollutants that increase cardiovascular risk include nitrogen oxides (NOx), and ozone (O3), sulphur dioxide and black carbon
Both short and long term exposure are linked to increased risk of cardiovascular diseases-related mortality, myocardial infarction, hypertension, and stroke.
Air pollution is often seen as a problem of cities and traffic, but indoor air pollution is equally dangerous, especially in their own homes, where people spend most of their time. For patients with heart failure who are particularly vulnerable to environmental stressors, breathing cleaner air could significantly reduce complications, hospitalisations, and even deaths.
SCTIMST study to explore whether cleaner indoor air can lead to better health outcomes is being carried out in collaboration with partners in India and the U.S.
Indo–US collaborative
This research is part of the Indo–US collaborative agreement on environmental and occupational health and focuses on one key question: Can reducing indoor air pollution improve the health of people with heart failure?
The study is being carried out at three major medical centres in the country- the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi; Dayanand Medical College (DMC), Ludhiana; and SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram.
Some of the dangerous indoor air pollutants include nitrogen dioxides (commonly produced by gas stoves and heaters) and carbon monoxide (produced by home appliances without proper air vents or when burning fuels), both of which can be quite harmful for patients with heart failure or other cardiovascular disease.
As part of the study, air purifiers have already been installed in the houses of 10 heart patients in Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam districts. The plan is to expand this number and install a total of 200 air purifiers in patients' houses across these districts.
Wide-reaching implications
This study could have wide-reaching public health implications for it could lead to new guidelines for managing heart failure, with an emphasis on the importance of air quality at home. It may be informative for national health policies, making air purifiers a potential part of patient care for high-risk groups, according to Harikrishnan S., Professor of Cardiology, who is the the Principal Investigator of the study. The co-investigators are Jeemon Panniyammakal, G. Sanjay and Jyothi Vijay.
With heart disease being the leading cause of death in India, innovative, evidence-based interventions are urgently needed. Exploring the connection between clean air and cardiac health could be the first step towards this, they said.