Joel D Schwartz

..Once again, the association showed no sign of a threshold. The magnitude of the association suggests that controlling fine particle pollution would result in thousands of fewer early deaths per year...

..S. cities with a wide range of climates. To account for possible delayed effects and harvesting, we examined the impact of weather up to 20 days before each admission...

..Air pollution has been associated with changes in daily mortality...

..Alternatively, the findings may suggest that in some locations, observed associations with the gaseous pollutants should be interpreted with caution, as they may be reflecting associations with PM or one of its chemical components...

..We derived reference equations depending on individual characteristics (i.e., sex, age, baseline lung function) for relevant percentiles of the methacholine two-point dose-response slope...

..Sequence variants in genes functioning in folate-mediated one-carbon metabolism are hypothesized to lead to changes in levels of homocysteine and DNA methylation, which, in turn, are associated with risk of cardiovascular disease...

..Early warning methods that provide earlier alerts (usually by the use of weather variables) may permit control measures to interrupt transmission earlier in the epidemic, perhaps at the expense of some level of accuracy...

..The impact of temperature on the duration of a mosquito's life cycle and the sporogonic phase of the parasite could explain the inconsistent findings...

..Given mounting evidence for adverse effects from excess manganese exposure, it is critical to understand host factors, such as genetics, that affect manganese metabolism...

..We also investigated whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in miRNA-processing genes modify these associations...

..One suggested pathway is that pollution causes oxidative stress. If so, oxidative stress-related genotypes may modify the oxidative response defenses to pollution exposure...

..We examined the association between daytime exposure to the metal content of PM2.5 and night HRV in a panel study of boilermaker construction workers exposed to metal-rich welding fumes...

..Associations between ambient temperature and cardiovascular mortality are well established. This study investigated whether inflammation could be part of the mechanism leading to temperature-related cardiovascular deaths...

..A few studies simply examine the modification of this ozone effect by individual characteristics and socioeconomic status, but socioeconomic status was usually coded at the city level...

..A particular feature in the region is dust blown from the Sahara a few times a year resulting in extreme PM10 concentrations. It is not entirely clear whether such natural phenomena pose the same risks...

..We investigated whether particles were associated with survival in a cohort of persons with COPD in 34 US cities, eliminating the usual cross-sectional exposure and treating PM10 as a within city time varying exposure...

..The impact of outdoor air pollution on infant mortality has not been quantified...

..While use of spatial methods to estimate exposure to air pollution has increased the power to detect effects, questions have been raised about potential for confounding by social factors...

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..Recently, several reports have indicated that the software used to control for season and weather in some of these studies had deficiencies...

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..Air pollution by particulate matter (PM) has been associated with cardiovascular deaths, although the mechanism of action is unclear. One proposed pathway is through disturbances of the autonomic control of the heart...

..Similarly, the delay between changes in exposure and changes in health is also important in public health decision making. We addressed these issues using an extended follow-up of the Harvard Six Cities Study...

..Extremes of temperature are well known to be associated with excess mortality. Less is known about the characteristics of persons that put them at higher risk, particularly the role of medical conditions...

..12-0.79%] when matched on maximum hourly ozone levels, to a 0.81% increase per 10 microg/m3 increment of PM10 (95% CI, 0.47-1.16%) when matched on 24-hr average SO2...

..Linear models provide an adequate estimation of the effect of particulate air pollution on mortality at low to moderate concentrations...

..PM(10), but not gaseous air pollutants, is associated with blood markers of cardiovascular risk, and this may explain epidemiologic associations with early deaths...

..It is also consistent with recent animal and human studies of the mechanisms of particle toxicity...

..The resulting effect size estimates were very small and the confidence intervals included zero...

..To assess whether the association between SO(2) and daily deaths in Philadelphia during the years 1974-88 is due to its correlation with airborne particles, and vice versa...

..Although many of these associations seem likely to be causal, others require and warrant additional investigation...

..We evaluated the modifying influence of a delta-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD) polymorphism on the relation between lead burden and cognition among older men...

..Independent effects of both these indicators of pollution exposure were seen on cardiac autonomic function...

..Acute exposure to ambient air pollution has been associated with acute changes in cardiac outcomes, often within hours of exposure...

..The results suggest that air conditioning and proportion of especially traffic-related particles significantly modify the effect of PM(10) on hospital admissions, especially for CVD...

..We hypothesized that candidate genes selected for a study of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) are associated with markers of systemic inflammation and endothelial dysfunction in an aging population...

..CONCLUSIONS: Increased ambient O3 pollution was associated with increased risk of episodes of rapid ventricular response due to PAF, thereby suggesting that community air pollution may be a precipitant of these events...

..As iron and lead promote oxidative damage, and hemochromatosis (HFE) gene polymorphisms increase body iron burden, HFE variant alleles may modify the lead burden and cognitive decline relationship...

..Altered heart rate variability (HRV), a marker of poor cardiac autonomic function, has been associated with sudden cardiac death and heart failure...

..Daily increases in ambient ozone have been associated with increased mortality. However, little is known about which subpopulations are more susceptible to death related to ozone...

..Two HFE polymorphisms (C282Y and H63D) associated with increased iron uptake may modify the effect of metal-rich particles on the cardiovascular system...

..CONCLUSIONS: These results reveal an association between cardiac autonomic function and environmental PM2.5 exposure. These observed associations may result from decreased vagal or increased sympathetic tone...

..The associations with sulfate suggest a link with stationary fossil fuel combustion sources...

..6 for a 1 microg/m(3) increase in 6-hour mean BC). In conclusion, after hospitalization for coronary artery disease, being in traffic and short-term ambient or indoor BC exposure increased TWA, a marker of cardiac electrical instability...

..We examined whether endothelium-dependent and -independent vascular reactivity was associated with particle exposure in individuals with and without diabetes...

..The impact of prenatal lead exposure on neurodevelopment remains unclear in terms of consistency, the trimester of greatest vulnerability, and the best method for estimating fetal lead exposure...

..Because these risks may be particularly great for traffic-related particles, we examined associations between particles and heart rate variability as 44 subjects participated in 4 repeated trips aboard a diesel bus...

..However, because human milk is the best and most complete nutritional source for young infants, breast-feeding should be encouraged because the absolute values of the effects are small within this range of lead concentrations...

..CONCLUSIONS: High bone and blood lead increased the likelihood of hypertension, particularly among subjects with low dietary calcium intake. Dietary calcium may be helpful in prevention of hypertension induced by elevated lead burden...

..Additional research is needed to ascertain whether this constitutes a true gene-environment interaction and, if so, its clinical impact...

..Lead accumulates in the vasculature and is associated with vascular oxidative stress, which can promote functional and structural vascular disease...

..Some evidence suggests that particulate matter may accelerate the atherosclerotic process. Effects of within-city variations of particulate air pollution on survival after an acute cardiovascular event have been little explored...

..Geographic information system (GIS) approaches have recently been used to improve exposure assessment, particularly for traffic particles, but only for long-term exposure...

..The quantification of the relative influence of the different factors examined should help in the interpretation of BR...

..Our data suggest that long-term increases in temperature variability may increase the risk of mortality in different subgroups of susceptible older populations...

..CONCLUSIONS This example illustrates that the penalized spline methodology can be easily applied to cohort studies to estimate smooth exposure-response curves...

..We have extended this to include a longitudinal analysis with more subjects and examination of the GT short tandem repeat polymorphism in the heme oxygenase-1 (HMOX-1) promoter...

..We saw no clear pattern for the effect of humidity. In hierarchical models, greater variance of summer and winter temperature was associated with larger effects for hot and cold days, respectively, on respiratory deaths...

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..These results confirm previous findings and suggest that matching of pollution periods to arrhythmias is important in detecting such associations...

..Recent data indicate that chronic low-level exposure to lead is associated with accelerated declines in cognition in older age, but this has not been examined in women...

..These results extend our understanding of the adverse health effects of the metals component of ambient PM(2.5)...

..81 (95% CI, 0.10-6.30). CONCLUSIONS: ID is associated with subsequent lead poisoning. These data are consistent with a biological mechanism of increased lead absorption among iron deficient children...

..High manganese exposures have been associated with negative reproductive outcomes in animals, but few epidemiologic studies have examined the effects of human fetal manganese exposure...

..We found modest positive associations between PM2.5 and indicators of systemic inflammation, with larger associations suggested for individuals with diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and elevated mean inflammatory markers...

..004). These results augment evidence of a deleterious association between lead and psychiatric symptoms...

..However, the modifying potential of psychosocial stress on the neurotoxicity of lead and their combined relationship to aging-associated decline have not been fully examined...

..The association between bone lead levels and mortality has not been explored...

..Place of death, race, and educational attainment indicate vulnerability to temperature-related mortality, reflecting inequities in health impacts related to climate change...

..5) and PM coarse on the increased risk of death for all causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, and respiratory mortality for the years 1999-2005...

..The objective of this study is to investigate the mobilization of lead from bone to blood (endogenous exposure) in a large epidemiologic population...

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..Although several previous studies have found a positive association between ambient ozone and mortality, the observed effect may be confounded by other secondary pollutants that are produced concurrently with ozone...

..A number of studies have demonstrated a relationship between lung function and cognition among adults, but this relationship has not been studied among children...

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..S. adults, and may be more prevalent in poor urban environments. SDB and air pollution have been linked to increased cardiovascular diseases and mortality, but the association between pollution and SDB is poorly understood...

..Given the evidence that ambient particles increase blood pressure, we hypothesized that the intervention would lower blood pressure...

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..The results of this study provide essential information to further evaluate the effects of dustborne fungi on office workers' health...

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..Seasonal variation was evident for MX and mutagenic activity, with higher levels occurring in the spring compared to the fall. In contrast, TTHM concentrations were greater in the fall...

..Moreover, there was evidence that maternal self-esteem attenuated the negative effects of lead exposure, although the interaction fell short of conventional levels of statistical significance...

..nondeletion), and HMOX-1 (any short vs. both long). We attempted to replicate identified genes in an analysis of heart rate variability and in other outcomes reported in the literature...

..Fine particulate matter [aerodynamic diameter </= 2.5 mum (PM(2.5))] has been associated with autonomic dysregulation...

..We evaluated whether lower blood DNA methylation in heavily methylated repetitive sequences predicts the risk of ischemic heart disease and stroke...

..Accumulating evidence has shown an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in general populations exposed to arsenic, but little is known about exposures during pregnancy and the association with gestational diabetes (GD)...

..We conclude that increased concentrations of ambient PM10 are associated with increased risk of MI among the elderly...

..We explored whether the association between cause-specific hospital admissions and PM(2.5) was modified by PM(2.5) chemical composition...

..Ambient particulate pollution and traffic have been linked to myocardial infarction and cardiac death risk. Possible mechanisms include autonomic cardiac dysfunction...

..We examined the association between particulate matter and cell adhesion molecules. We also investigated the modifying effect of genotype and phenotype variation to gain insight into the relevant biological pathways for this association...

..Prenatal lead exposure is associated with deficits in fetal growth and neurodevelopment. Calcium supplementation may attenuate fetal exposure by inhibiting mobilization of maternal bone lead and/or intestinal absorption of ingested lead...

..We investigated whether low dietary nutrient intakes were associated with lower pulmonary function and higher reporting of respiratory symptoms in adolescents...

..The data suggest that higher patella bone lead levels, a marker of mobilizable accumulated lead burden, are associated with a steeper decline over time in performance on the MMSE test among nonoccupationally exposed elderly men...

..Exposures to PM2.5 and O3 are associated with decreased HRV, and history of IHD, hypertension, and diabetes may confer susceptibility to autonomic dysfunction by air pollution...

..It concludes that health effects increase as length of exposure increases, but much of that increase occurs within the first year...

..5). Our findings describe the magnitude of the effect on all-cause and specific-cause mortality, the modifiers of this association, and suggest that PM(2.5) may pose a public health risk even at or below current ambient levels...

..We examined the association between ambient air pollution levels and heart rate variability (HRV) in a panel study of 32 subjects...

..The findings suggest that more attention must be paid to population characteristics to identify greater likelihood of exposures and susceptibility and, as a result, to improve policy making for air pollution standards...

..A large body of epidemiologic literature has found an association of increased fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) with acute and chronic mortality. The effect of improvements in particle exposure is less clear...

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..Quantitative DNA methylation analysis, based on PCR amplification and pyrosequencing of bisulphite-treated DNA, will be performed for each study subject on three blood DNA samples collected over a long time span. ..

..Quantitative DNA methylation analysis, based on PCR amplification and pyrosequencing of bisulphite-treated DNA, will be performed for each study subject on three blood DNA samples collected over a long time span. ..

..A preliminary analysis will use retrospective data, and not obtain questionnaire data. Effect modification by diabetes, prior MI, COPD, smoking, and angina will be tested using interaction terms. ..

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