Bert Brunekreef

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..To investigate which air pollution characteristics are associated with biomarkers for acute nasal airway inflammation in healthy subjects. We hypothesised that associations would be strongest for oxidative potential (OP) of particles...

..Associations between exposure to cats and dogs and respiratory and allergic outcomes in children have been reported in affluent countries, but little is known about such associations in less-affluent countries...

..Associations between early life exposure to farm animals and respiratory symptoms and allergy in children have been reported in developed countries, but little is known about such associations in developing countries...

..abstract:..

..This study examined the relation between long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution and type 2 diabetes prevalence among 50- to 75-year-old subjects living in Westfriesland, the Netherlands...

..This study estimates minute ventilation of cyclists, car and bus passengers, as part of a study on health effects of commuters' exposure to air pollutants...

..Aim of this study was to quantify the positive energy balance responsible for excess body weight gain (energy gap) in young overweight children...

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..The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between prescribing of asthma medication and doctor-diagnosed asthma in children age 0-17...

..Examples are provided for each of these. The strengths and weaknesses compared to experimental toxicology studies are discussed...

..The results of a number of recent European studies are discussed...

..Associations between traffic pollution on the street of residence and a range of respiratory and allergic outcomes in children have been reported in developed countries, but little is known about such associations in developing countries...

..Cat allergen is a major cause of morbidity among sensitised asthma patients, but little is known about distribution of cat allergen exposure and its determinants in homes...

..This study investigated air pollution at street level before and after implementation of local traffic policies including low emission zones (LEZ) directed at heavy duty vehicles (trucks) in five Dutch cities...

..The role of air pollution exposure in the development of asthma, allergies, and related symptoms remains unclear, due in part to the limited number of prospective cohort studies with sufficiently long follow-ups addressing this problem...

..Our aim was to examine the association between gas cooking and the development of respiratory and allergic outcomes longitudinally in a prospective birth cohort study...

..71, 95% confidence interval: 0.49-1.03). Breastfed children had a healthier diet at 7 years compared to nonbreastfed children, but this difference could not explain the lower overweight risk at 8 years in breastfed children...

..Measuring the oxidative potential of airborne particulate matter (PM) may provide a more health-based exposure measure by integrating various biologically relevant properties of PM into a single predictor of biological activity...

..Asthma may be more prevalent in overweight children. However, how early overweight and changes in weight status during childhood affect the asthma risk is unclear...

..This challenge creates an opportunity for variability in prescribing. The aim of our study was to investigate how and to what degree patient, family, and physician characteristics influence prescribing of asthma medication in children...

..This study describes the formation of a longitudinal data set on asthma medication use and shows first results regarding the prevalence and incidence of medication use...

..This study was conducted to assess the validity of parental reported use of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) in children...

..The aim of this study was to identify determinants of uncontrolled asthma at age 8 in children participating in the PIAMA birth cohort study...

..Maternal exposure to air pollution has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Few studies took into account the spatial and temporal variation of air pollution levels...

..Measurements of beta(1-->3)-glucans and fungal extracellular polysaccharides (EPS) are used as markers of mold exposure in field studies. Little is known about their levels and determinants in homes...

..This study investigated the in vitro toxicity of ambient PM collected at different sites in the Netherlands in relation to PM composition and oxidative potential...

..Exposure to microbial agents might inhibit the development of atopy and asthma...

..ICS and SABA prescription occurs especially in those who were more likely to develop signs of asthma at age 8...

..Outdoor concentrations of soot and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) outside of schools have been associated with children's respiratory and eye symptoms. We assessed how adjustments for measurement error affect these associations...

..There is evidence that rapid weight gain during the first year of life is associated with overweight later in life. However, results from studies exploring other critical periods for the development of overweight are inconsistent...

..Maternal diet during pregnancy has the potential to affect airway development and to promote T-helper-2-cell responses during fetal life. This might increase the risk of developing childhood asthma or allergy...

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..Investigation of variation over time is needed for a more complete assessment of the use of these variables in epidemiological analyses of exposure-response relationships...

..Most studies on the association between lung cancer and air pollution have investigated mortality. There have been few studies of lung cancer incidence...

..Since the composition of these particle fractions also differs, it is of interest to test in future epidemiological studies whether they have different health effects...

..Our aim is to quantify the persistent use of asthma medication, initiated in the first year of life and identify determinants of this persistent use...

..In our specific application, models based on as few as 24 training sites, however, achieved acceptable hold out validation R(2)s of, on average, 0.60...

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..5, soot, and coarse particles. A LUR model for PNC has been developed, with similar validity as previous models for more commonly measured pollutants...

..This finding supports the use of 'living near a busy road' as a measure of exposure in epidemiological studies on the effects of traffic-related air pollution in children...

..Exposure to endotoxin and allergens in house dust has been found to be associated with childhood wheeze and asthma. Neonatal lung function is rarely examined in relation to this exposure...

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..Several studies have found an effect on mortality of between-city contrasts in long-term exposure to air pollution. The effect of within-city contrasts is still poorly understood...

..We carried out a study to investigate the acute respiratory health effects of air pollution related to commuting by bicycle...

..In this study the agreement between parental reported and measured WC in 8-year-old children was investigated and compared with the agreement between parental reported and measured body mass index (BMI)...

..The n-3 and n-6 LCPUFA content in breast milk did not affect weight or BMI gain in the first year of life in breast-fed term infants...

..There are, however, very limited data in healthy young people. We examined the association between air pollutants and indicators of vascular damage in a cohort of young adults...

..We therefore conclude that measuring endotoxin levels with the EDC is a valid measure of average airborne endotoxin exposure, while reproducibility over time is at least equivalent to that of reservoir dust analyses...

..No studies have simultaneously addressed the long-term and short-term associations between traffic-related air pollution and exhaled NO...

..These findings suggest that the lower BMI and lower risk of overweight among breastfed children later in life are already achieved at 1 year of age...

..As European data on this topic are limited, the aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of maternal exposure to traffic-related air pollution during different periods of pregnancy on preterm birth and fetal growth...

..We tested the stability of measured and modelled spatial contrasts in outdoor nitrogen dioxide (NO(2)) pollution across the Netherlands over 8 years...

..Exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM) has been associated with adverse cardiovascular effects in epidemiological studies. Current knowledge of independent effects of individual PM characteristics remains limited...

..The final LUR models are used to estimate air pollution concentrations at the home addresses of participants in the health studies involved in ESCAPE...

..Time spent in traffic and spending time outdoors were associated with increased personal exposure of soot and PM2.5, but not NOx...

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..We aimed to assess the relation between traffic-related air pollution and mortality in participants of the Netherlands Cohort study on Diet and Cancer (NLCS), an ongoing study...

..We studied associations between BMI and WC and blood pressure (BP) and cholesterol in 12-year-old children and prospectively changes in BMI or WC status between age 8 and 12 years and BP and cholesterol at age 12...

..The currently recommended technique including inhalation through an NO scrubber effectively deals with variable levels of ambient NO on FENO. In contrast, ambient NO has an effect on measurements of nNO...

..Large-scale replication of previous associations is needed, however. We investigated the association between MBL2 polymorphisms and the frequency of RTI in a large population-based birth cohort of white children...

..We examined whether early atopic status (defined by elevated neonatal total IgE (tIgE) or symptoms of atopic dermatitis) modified the association between ETS exposure and RTI...

..Parental mattresses in homes of allergic mothers had lower cat and mite (but not dog) allergen loadings than mattresses in homes of nonallergic parents. Paternal (as opposed to maternal) allergy seemed to have little influence...

..The results indicated that endotoxin exposure is inversely associated with CAD, suggesting a protective effect of high indoor endotoxin exposure towards the development of the condition...

..In this review, we discuss the evidence for adverse effects on health of selected air pollutants...

..In addition, we studied the determinants and the consequences of differences between reported and measured data...

..This study was intended to identify a gradient of exposure to traffic-related air pollution within different areas in São Paulo to provide information for future epidemiological studies...

..This expert elicitation provides the first quantitative evaluation of estimates of concentration response functions between urban air ultrafine particles and all-cause mortality and hospital admissions...

..Previously we reported heterogeneous associations between particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 microm (PM2.5) and HRV across three study centers...

..Commuters are exposed to high concentrations of air pollutants, but little quantitative information is currently available on differences in exposure between different modes of transport, routes, and fuel types...

..Controlled exposure studies have shown acute respiratory effects of short, high exposures to air pollution from motor vehicles. Acute health effects of lower real-life exposures in traffic are unclear...

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..Because a broad stakeholder involvement in decision making can positively affect the development of widely supported policies, such meetings should be continued for Europe and elsewhere...

..In addition, following the examples of Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany, the use of geographical information systems is recommended to assess exposure to air pollutants at the address rather than the community level...

..Children from farming families have less allergies than their peers. Consumption of farm milk or unpasteurized milk has been shown to explain (part of) the farming effect or protect against allergies independent of farming status...

..The identified associations require further investigation...

..Although exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is a known risk factor associated with otitis media, little information is available regarding the potential association with air pollution...

..There is increasing evidence that environmental exposures determining childhood illnesses operate early in life. Prenatal exposure to a farming environment through the mother might also play an important role...

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..The spatial variation was substantially larger for NO2 than the variation for PM2.5 and similar to PM2.5 absorbance, measured in the same locations...

..These models will be used to study the association between prenatal exposure to air pollution and adverse pregnancy outcomes and early childhhod effects in the cohort...

..5. Our results demonstrate that by using questionnaires in connection with outdoor measurements, exposure estimation of PM2.5 and its combustion originating fraction can be improved among elderly persons with compromised health...

..Better understanding of the association between early life lipid intakes and the development of allergic diseases is needed...

..Our results suggest a short-lasting protective effect of prenatal exposure to pets on total IgE at birth and early sensitization...

..In conclusion, despite different assumptions and procedures used for the stochastic and dispersion modeling, both models yield similar results regarding exposure estimation of the study cohort to traffic-related air pollutants...

..While the ratio between PM(2.5) and PM(10) mass ranged from 0.54 to 0.68, the ratio of PM(2.5) absorbance and PM(10) absorbance was 0.96-0.97, indicating that PM(2.5) absorbance captures nearly all of the particle absorbance...

..Inconsistent data on the relation of farming to asthma and wheeze have raised some doubt about a true protective effect...

..Previous cross-sectional surveys have suggested that maternal exposure to animal sheds during pregnancy exerted a protective effect on atopic sensitization in children lasting until school age...

..Follow-up will determine the long-term effect of the intervention on the development of atopic disease...

..We investigated the associations with lung function of residential outdoor air pollution in early life, total lifetime, and days before lung function test...

..Source apportionment analysis is one method that may allow further advancement in understanding the source components that contribute to multipollutant health effects...

..We therefore assessed the associations between levels of the 3 main modes of urban aerosol distribution and the occurrence of ST-segment depressions during repeated exercise tests...

..It is likely that the toxicological responses of SH rats were associated with specific PM components derived from brake wear (copper and barium), tire wear (zinc), and wood smoke (potassium)...

..Atopic sensitization has long been known to be related to asthma in children, but its role in determining asthma prevalence remains to be elucidated further...

..This study explores the validity and generalizability of the previous assumption...