Outdoor air pollutants are linked to asthma attacks in Children and teens, according to a new study

A study conducted in the United States discovered that moderate levels of two outdoor air pollutants, ozone, and fine particulate matter, are associated with non-viral asthma attacks in children and adolescents living in low-income urban areas.

The study also discovers links between the two pollutants and molecular changes in the children’s airways during non-viral asthma attacks, implying possible mechanisms for those attacks.

According to the researchers, the observational study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is one of the first to link elevated levels of specific outdoor air pollutants in specific urban locations to distinct changes in the airways during asthma attacks not triggered by respiratory viruses. The findings have been published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

“The strong association this study demonstrates between specific air pollutants and non-viral asthma attacks among children in impoverished urban communities adds to the evidence that reducing air pollution would improve human health,” said Hugh Auchincloss, acting director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the NIH.

Chronic inflammation of the airways causes asthma.

During an asthma attack, the lining of the airways swells, the muscles surrounding the airways contract, and the airways produce extra mucus, significantly narrowing the space for air to move in and out of the lungs. Children in low-income urban areas in the United States are especially vulnerable to attack-prone asthma. Asthma attacks caused by respiratory virus infections – a common trigger – have been extensively studied.

However, those that occur independently of such infections have not, according to the study

The current study looked at the relationship between air pollutant levels and asthma attacks that occurred in the absence of a respiratory virus in 208 children aged 6 to 17 who had attack-prone asthma and lived in low-income neighborhoods in one of nine U.S. cities, according to the study.

The researchers then validated the associations they discovered between air pollutant levels and non-viral asthma attacks in an independent cohort of 189 children aged 6 to 20 years who also lived in low-income neighborhoods in four U.S. cities, according to the study.

For up to two respiratory illnesses or roughly six months, whichever happened first, the researchers prospectively monitored the kids. According to the study, each

The disease was categorized as viral or non-viral and as having caused an asthma episode or not.

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According to the study, the researchers compared each disease to the levels of specific air pollutants and air quality index values that the Environmental Protection Agency had recorded in the relevant city on the dates immediately before the illness.

In order to lessen the influence of the city and season on the results, the researchers then made adjustments to their data, according to the report.

According to the study, scientists discovered that asthma attacks in close to 30% of kids, or two to three times the proportion seen in kids from non-urban areas,
had non-viral causes. These attacks were linked to locally increased levels of ozone and fine particulate matter in the ambient air.

By examining nasal cell samples taken from the children while they were unwell, the researchers were able to

connect changes in the expression of particular gene sets that contribute to airway inflammation to increased levels of these two pollutants.

According to the study, some of the detected gene-expression patterns imply that particular biological pathways might be involved in non-viral asthma attacks.
The study concluded that it will be crucial to create and evaluate various solutions in order to determine whether they can avoid or lessen asthma attacks in urban children caused by pollution

According to the study, these approaches may include therapies intended to counteract the negative effects of high levels of outdoor air pollutants on the
inflammatory reactions linked to nonviral asthma attacks as well as tools for the individualized monitoring of local outdoor air pollutant levels to guide asthma management. (PTI)