Acute differences in blood lipids and inflammatory biomarkers following controlled exposures to cookstove air pollution in the STOVES study

ABSTRACT

Household air pollution is a leading risk factor for morbidity and premature mortality. Numerous cookstoves have been developed to reduce household air pollution, but it is unclear whether such cookstoves meaningfully improve health. In a controlled exposure study with a crossover design, we assessed the effect of pollution emitted from multiple cookstoves on acute differences in blood lipids and inflammatory biomarkers. Participants (n = 48) were assigned to treatment sequences of exposure to air pollution emitted from five cookstoves and a filtered-air control. Blood lipids and inflammatory biomarkers were measured before and 0, 3, and 24 hours after treatments. Many of the measured outcomes had inconsistent results. However, compared to control, intercellular adhesion molecule-1 was higher 3 hours after all treatments, and C-reactive protein and serum amyloid-A were higher 24 hours after the highest treatment. Our results suggest that short-term exposure to cookstove air pollution can increase inflammatory biomarkers within 24 hours.

KEYWORDS:

• Air pollution
• biomass burning
• lipoproteins
• inflammation

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the participants and study personnel who made this research possible. We are grateful to the medical staff from Heart Center of the Rockies and the students who helped run the SET facility (Lizette Van Zyl, Evan Guiderra, Kathryne Gutekunst, and Danny Stringer). We are also grateful to Lisa Dailey, Tracey Montilla, and Julie Wood of the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory at the U.S. EPA for analysing the inflammatory markers reported in this manuscript.

The research described in this article has been reviewed by the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, U.S. EPA, and approved for publication. The contents of this article should not be construed to represent Agency policy nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Authors’ contributions

JP and JV developed the research idea. EW, TC, NG, KF,

CL, GL, JM, and RS were involved in study design and/or data collection. AW, MC, RD,

JB, RB, JP, and JV provided consultation on study design, data analysis, and results

interpretation. EW conducted the analysis and drafted the manuscript. All authors

critically reviewed the manuscript and edited the manuscript for intellectual content.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01ES023688. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.