Short-term health effects of air pollution and viral exposure

This thesis describes the short-term effects of environmental exposures on the cardiorespiratory system, and consists of two parts. In the first part, we investigated the short-term health effects of air pollution, in which 21 healthy young adults were repeatedly (2-5 visits) exposed for 5 hours to the ambient air near a major airport and two highways. We found that exposures to high levels of ultrafine particles, decreased lung function, prolonged the QTc interval, altered the exhaled breath profile, and heightened concentrations of oxidative stress markers in urine. This study shows the importance of air pollution reduction and the need for future research to determine how detrimental the (long-term) effects of exposure to ultrafine particles (from aviation) are.
In the second part, we investigated the effects of a rhinovirus challenge on the fluctuations in exhaled metabolites. Exhaled breath measurements were performed 2-3 times per week using an electronic nose, 60 days before and 30 days after a rhinovirus-16 (RV16) challenge, in non-atopic healthy adults (n=12) and atopic mild asthmatics (n=12). We found that day-to-day fluctuations in the exhaled breath profiles rapidly increased after the RV16 challenge, with distinct differences between atopic mild asthmatics and non-atopic healthy volunteers. This proof-of-concept study shows the potential of exhaled breath analysis for monitoring of virus-induced exacerbations in asthma.