Air pollution effects on inflammation, cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular events - role of source-specific PM and PM components

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During the previous project phase we investigated the impact of overall fine particulate matter (PM) and PM from different emission sources on inflammatory markers of the innate immune system, cardiovascular risk factors and cardiometabolic disease in the general population. Our most important finding is that short- and long-term exposure to fine PM are associated with a systemic inflammatory response, impaired glucose control, and an elevated risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, and that long-term PM is associated with increased arterial blood pressure and subclinical atherosclerosis. First preliminary evidence from our study also suggests an additional pathway via the adaptive immune system, which has not been examined in long-term epidemiological studies before. Source-specific analyses tend to show an increased toxicity of fresh local traffic emissions in comparison to overall PM, while this could not be observed so far for local industry-specific PM. In this renewal proposal, we aim to advance our research by (1) enhancing the exposure assessment with modeled constituent data and by extending the scenario simulations from including only local sources to including also regional sources of traffic and industry. (2) We want to make use of the enlarged Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study (HNR) health data base, which now incorporates 10 years of follow-up, to investigate source-specific PM effects on incidence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events as well as extended analyses on cardiovascular risk factors. (3) Moreover, our preliminary analyses have pointed to an involvement of the adaptive immune system in the generation of chronic inflammatory responses to PM. This novel finding has been supported by toxicological evidence. We aim to follow this new avenue of air pollution research and investigate the associations of source-specific PM with free light chains and monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS). We expect to be able to contribute to the pressing questions on source-specific and constituent-specific health effects of fine PM air pollution and through this contribute to more effective and efficient preventive measures.