air pollution: still causing emphysema
A recent article found that long-term exposure to air pollution was significantly associated with increasing emphysema, as assessed using quantitative CT imaging and lung function (see air pollution and copd jama2019 in dropbox, or doi:10.1001/jama.2019.10255) Details: -- 7071 participants in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA study) from 6 US metropolitan areas (Winston-Salem, NC; New York City; Baltimore, MD; St. Paul, MN, Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA), from 2000-2018 -- age at recruitment 60, 47% men; others varied by site (eg 10% white/37% Chinese/12% black in LA, 50% white/50% black in Baltimore, 20% white/35% black/45% Hispanic in NY), some college in 60%, never smoker 45%/former smoker 40%/current 15%, BMI <30 in 70% -- pollutant exposures measured: ground-level ozone (O 3 ), PM 2.5 (fine particular matter < 2.5 microns), NO x (nitrogen oxides) and black carbon --baseline: O 3 ...