According to a new study, traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) affects exercise responses in healthy people but not in former smokers with or without chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
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Researchers looked at whether pre-exercise exposure to
TRAP (diesel exhaust [DE]300: fine particulate matter [PM2.5] 300 μg/m3) had an
adverse effect on exercise endurance, exertional dyspnea, and cardiorespiratory
responses to exercise, and whether the magnitude of the effect was greater in
participants with mild-to-moderate COPD (n=9) compared to former smokers with
normal spirometry (n=9) and healthy never-smokers (controls, n=11).
The participants in this double-blind, randomized,
crossover trial were exposed to filtered air (FA) and DE300 for 2 hours each,
separated by at least 4 weeks. The subjects underwent symptom-limited constant
load cycling tests with thorough cardiorespiratory and exertional symptom
measures after 2.5 hours of exposure.
TRAP had a significant detrimental effect on exercise
endurance duration in healthy controls (DE300 vs FA: 10.2 vs 12.9 min,
respectively; p=0.03), but not in ex-smokers without COPD (10.1 vs 12.2 min,
respectively; p=0.57) or ex-smokers with COPD (9.8 vs 8.4 min, respectively;
p=0.31).
Furthermore, there were significant increases in
inspiratory duty cycle, absolute end-expiratory and end-inspiratory lung volumes,
and dyspnea ratings were high at submaximal measurement durations, but only in
healthy controls.
Source: Chest 2021;doi:10.1016/j.chest.2021.10.020