The association between PM 2.5 and frailty: evidence from 122 cities in China and 7 countries in Europe.

Background: The accelerated aging process worldwide is placing a heavy burden on countries. PM _2.5 particulate matter exposure is a significant factor affecting human health and is crucial in the aging process.
Methods: We utilized data from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) and the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to study the relationship between PM _2.5 exposure and the frailty index. Acquire PM _2.5 exposure data for China and Europe, match them according to geographic location within the database. Our study used frailty index to evaluate frailty, which comprises 29 items. We examined the association between PM _2.5 and frailty index using fixed-effects regression models and Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.
Results: We first examined the association between PM _2.5 and frailty index using fixed-effects regression models, revealing a notable positive link across populations in China (coefficient = 0.0003, P = 0.0380) and Europe (Coefficient = 0.0019, P < 0.0001). This suggests that PM _2.5 exposure is a significant risk factor for frailty, leading to accelerated frailty. Moreover, our MR analysis uncovered a possible causal association (OR = 1.2933, 95%CI: 1.2045-1.3820, P < 0.0001) between PM _2.5 exposure and the frailty index.
Conclusions: Our findings indicate that long-term exposure to PM _2.5 in the environment is a risk factor for physical frailty and may have a potential causal relationship. Given the rapid global aging trend, public health measures are needed to reduce PM _2.5 concentrations and prevent frailty.
Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethical approval: CHARLS received ethical approval from the Biomedical Ethics Review Committee of Peking University (IRB00001052-11015) and all participants provided informed written consent. SHARE received ethical approval from the Ethics Council of the Max Planck Society and all participants provided informed written consent. GWAS summary data and air pollution data are public data and do not require ethical approval. Consent for publication: All authors approved the final manuscript and the submission to this journal. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
(© 2024. The Author(s).)