Background: Childhood cancer has few established risk factors and environmental influences are underexplored. This ecologic study investigated the association between domestic radon exposure and childhood cancer risk in a large sample of United States (U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Space weather has been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases in space and flight crew. However, limited research has focused on the ground population, particularly among the elderly who are vulnerable to aging-related diseases.
Objective: We evaluated the association between space weather alterations and biological aging using leukocyte telomere length as a biomarker in healthy elderly men.
Background: Solar activity has been linked to biological mechanisms important to pregnancy, including folate and melatonin levels and inflammatory markers. Thus, we aimed to investigate the association between gestational solar activity and pregnancy loss.
Methods: Our study included 71,963 singleton births conceived in 2002-2016 and delivered at an academic medical center in Eastern Massachusetts.
Radon decay products include α-radiation emitting radionuclides that attach to airborne particles that have potential to promote oxidative tissue damage after inhalation. To assess associations between α-particle radioactivity (α-PR) with urinary biomarkers of oxidative tissue damage, 140 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) had up to four 1-week seasonal assessments (N = 413) of indoor (home) and ambient (central site) PM and black carbon (BC). Following environmental sampling, urine samples were analyzed for total and free malondialdehyde (MDA), biomarkers of lipid oxidation, and 8-hydroxyl-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), a biomarker of DNA oxidative damage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn 1987, the United States Environmental Protection Agency recommended installing a mitigation system when the indoor concentration of radon, a well-known carcinogenic radioactive gas, is at or above 148 Bq/m. In response, tens of millions of short-term radon measurements have been conducted in residential buildings over the past three decades either for disclosure or to initially evaluate the need for mitigation. These measurements, however, are currently underutilized to assess population radon exposure in epidemiological studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Solar and geomagnetic activity have been shown to suppress melatonin and to degrade folate levels, important hormones for fetal development. We examined whether solar and geomagnetic activity were associated with fetal growth.
Methods: We included 9573 singleton births with 26,879 routine ultrasounds at an academic medical center in Eastern Massachusetts from 2011 through 2016.
Background: Radon may have a role in obstructive lung disease outside its known carcinogenicity. Little is known about radon's effects on asthma morbidity.
Objective: To determine the effect of radon on fractional exhaled nitric oxide (F NO), asthma symptom-days, and lung function in inner-city asthmatic school children.
Background: Little is known about the link between solar activity and variations in melatonin. In this study, we investigated if melatonin's major urinary metabolite, urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin (aMT6s), is lowest under periods of intense solar activity.
Methods: We investigated associations between high-energy solar particle events [Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) mass, speed and energy] on creatinine-adjusted aMT6s (aMT6sr) concentrations in 140 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) using up to four seasonal urine samples (n = 440).
Objective: To evaluated the relationship between serum vitamin D levels and periodontal healing outcomes in patients with mild or moderate periodontitis.
Methods: Serum vitamin D levels and periodontal pockets and gingival bleeding were evaluated in 51 patients before and 6 months after non-surgical periodontal treatment. A t-test and chi-square test were used to analyse the data (p ≤ 0.
Background: Solar and geomagnetic activity (GA) have been linked to increased cardiovascular (CVD) events. We hypothesize that heart rate variability (HRV) may be the biological mechanism between increased CVD risk and intense geomagnetic disturbances (GMD).
Methods: To evaluate the impact of GA and intense GMD on HRV in 809 elderly men [age mean 74.
Aims: Cardiac arrhythmias have been associated with intense solar and geomagnetic activity (SGA) and exposures to air pollution.
Methods And Results: We examined whether oscillations of SGA can modify the effect of hourly exposures to air pollutants on atrial fibrillation ≥30 s (AF) risk in patients with dual-chamber implantable cardioverter-defibrillators. The effects of SGA on ambient particulate matter <2.
Background Since solar activity and related geomagnetic disturbances modulate autonomic nervous system activity, we hypothesized that these events would be associated with blood pressure (BP). Methods and Results We studied 675 elderly men from the Normative Aging Study (Boston, MA) with 1949 BP measurements between 2000 and 2017. Mixed-effects regression models were used to investigate the association of average 1-day (ie, day of BP measurement) to 28-day interplanetary magnetic field intensity, sunspot number, and a dichotomized measure of global geomagnetic activity (K index) in 4-day increments with diastolic and systolic BP.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Air Waste Manag Assoc
December 2021
Radon (Rn) is a natural and toxic radioactive gas that accumulates indoors, mainly in low-ventilated underground floors and basements. Several factors make prediction of indoor Rn exposure in enclosed spaces challenging. In this study, we investigated the influence of soil, geology, topography, atmospheric variables, radiation, urbanization, community economic well-being, and monthly and yearly variations on indoor Rn concentrations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSolar radiation plays a major role in atmospheric photochemistry, contributing to the formation and growth of ultrafine particles (PN). PN affect global Earth's radiation balance, climate system, and human health. However, the impact of solar activity on ambient PN remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCenturies of human activities, particularly housing and transportation practices from the late 19th century through the 1980's, dispersed hundreds of millions of tons of lead into our urban areas. The urban lead burden is evident among humans, wild and domesticated animals, and plants. Animal lead exposures closely mirror and often exceed the lead exposure patterns of their human partners.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLead adversely impacts the health of humans, animals, and the natural environment. Higher lead burdens in warm weather occur in humans, domesticated and wild animals; land and water species; urban and rural, developed and pristine environments. The array of evidence suggests that lead seasonality is multifactorial within the natural world, including humans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Short-term geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) driven by the quasi-periodic 11-year cycle of solar activity have been linked to a broad range of adverse health effects, including cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and total deaths. We conducted a large epidemiological study in 263 U.S.
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