Main Air Pollutants and Myocardial Infarction: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

The article assesses and quantifies the association between short-term exposure to high levels of air pollutants and myocardial infarction (MI) risk. Results of evaluation revealed that main air pollutants including carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide were associated to a near-term increase in MI risk. It appeared that ozone was the only pollutant that was found to have no link with MI risk. Suggested possible mechanisms for the associations are inflammation, abnormal regulation of the cardiac autonomic system, increase in blood viscosity as well as vasoconstrictors as a result of air pollution, direct induction of cardiac ischemia by vasospasm.