• Item type: Scientific article
• Language: English
• Author: Sanjay Rajagopalan and Robert D. Brook
• Target audience: All health professionals
• Publication Date: Dec, 2012
• 3037.full.pdf(812.92 KB)

This review will summarize recent evidence on how outdoor air pollution may represent an underappreciated yet critical linkage between urbanization and the emergence of cardiometabolic diseases, with a focus on type 2 DM. We define cardiometabolic disease as the confluence of cardiovascular disease and type 2 DM in recognition of the fact that the milieu of diabetes fundamentally alters the pathophysiology of coronary, cerebrovascular, and peripheral arterial disease. Thus, alteration in susceptibility to DM automatically increases the likelihood of cardiovascular disease. Indoor air pollution is not discussed owing to the paucity of data. It should be noted that our current understanding of air pollution–mediated cardiometabolic disease is derived from outdoor air pollution studies, with there being no good reasons to believe that the dose-response relationship to indoor air pollution will be any different. An understanding of potentially reversible environmental factors responsible for this rapid burgeoning of cardiometabolic disorders among developing nations is crucial in order to devise a societal response that is proportionate and adequate. In this review, the association between air pollution and type 2 DM is discussed unless this distinction cannot be made in the cited study (typically health registry data sets).