Long-term exposure air pollution is likely to increase the risk of possibly lethal leg blood clots a study has found.
Researchers have found long-term pollution exposure can lead to leg blood clots. Photo: Pollution. Credit: pfala/flickr
While soot particles caused by car exhausts and industrial pollution has long concerned public health experts, a study led by Dr. Andrea Baccarelli of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston has linked pollution to the contraction of deep vein thrombosis, which occurs when a blood clot forms in the lower leg or thigh.
Her research of some 2,000 people in the Lombardy region of Italy, a particularly polluted area due to the close proximity of the Alps which does not allow for easy air flow, found that thrombosis risk was 70% greater in areas where the concentration of pollutants was around a quarter above average values.
"Nobody had even thought to think about that risk factor before we did this study,'' said Baccarelli, an adjunct assistant professor of environmental health at Harvard's School of Public Health in Boston. "It's important to avoid exposure to pollution, but if you're in an area with high pollution, you need to know you're at higher risk for cardiovascular disease in general.''
Previous studies of the effect pollution has on health has linked the effect the soot particles has on arteries, which carry blood from the heart to the rest of the body. However Baccarelli 's research is first to show how veins, which take blood to the heart, are affected.
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