Eating too much fatty food, exercising too little and smoking can raise your future risk of heart disease. But there is another factor that can cause your heart problems more immediately: the air you breathe.
Previous studies have linked high exposure (暴露)to environmental pollution to an increased risk of heart problem, but two analyses now show that poor air quality can lead to heart attack or stroke (中风)within as little as a few hours after exposure. In one review of the research, scientists found that people exposed to high levels of pollutants (污染物)were up to 5% more likely to suffer a heart attack within days of exposure than those with lower exposure. A separate study of stroke patients showed that even air that the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers to be of “moderate” (良好)quality and relatively safe for our health can raise the risk of stroke as much as 34% within 12 to 14 hours of exposure.
