HYDERABAD: AIR pollution can cause a rise in blood pressure, according to a study conducted in the peri-urban areas of Hyderabad as part of the Cardiovascular Health Effects of Air Pollution in Telangana, India (or the CHAI Project).
The finding holds true not only for cities that are infamous for poor air quality, like Delhi, Kanpur or Agra for instance but also for areas where people are exposed to lower levels of pollution.
The study involved researchers from Pompeu Fabra University in Spain, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), National Institute of Nutrition and Indian Institute of Public Health.
Titled, ‘Ambient Particulate Air Pollution and Blood Pressure in Peri-urban India’, the research had 5,531 participants living across 28 villages in and around Ibrahimpatnam -- around 30 km from Hyderabad. Blood pressure of the participants and the fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) levels at their residential addresses were measured.
The participants were exposed to an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 32.8 micrograms per metre cube, which is much lower than the average PM2.5 concentrations in cities.
One can only imagine what sort of affect would air pollution have on the blood pressure of people living in major cities like Hyderabad, wherein the annual PM2.5 concentrations are recorded above 50-60 microgram per metre cube for the most part of the year.
An analysis of the data revealed that there was a direct correlation between higher PM2.5 concentration and blood pressure.
The researchers observed that 1 microgram per metre cube increase in PM2.5 was associated with 1.4mmHg rise in Systolic BP and 0.9mmHg rise in Diastolic BP. This observation was exclusive to the women-folk of the villages, and not for men.
Does this mean higher PM2.5 levels affect only women? As Dr Sanjay Kinra of LSHTM, one of the authors, explained, the PM2.5 levels for this study were measured at residential addresses of participants.
As women spend more time at home than men in the villages, a strong correlation was found between the pollution and BP levels in women. Similar results might be observed if a study was conducted on the correlation between the PM2.5 levels in places where the men work and their BP levels.