Does regular exercise protect against air pollution-associated mortality?
OBJECTIVE
To examine whether habitual exercise would modify the effects of air pollution on mortality.


METHODS
This study included 24,053 Hong Kong Chinese who died at the age of 30 years or older in 1998. Individual information on frequency of exercise was obtained by interviewing their relatives at all four death registries. The deceased subjects were categorized as never-exercise (<once/month) and exercise (> or =once/month). Excess risks (ER) of mortality per 10 microg/m(3) increase of air pollutant were estimated separately by a Poisson regression model in the exercise and never-exercise groups. An interaction model was used to estimate the difference in ER between the two groups.


RESULTS
In people aged 65 years or older and categorized as never-exercise group, there were significant ER of mortality for all natural causes attributed to nitrogen dioxide (p<0.05), ozone (p<0.05) and particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 mum or smaller (p<0.01). When compared to the exercise group, the ER were significantly higher by 4.31% (95% confidence interval: 2.57%, 6.03%), 1.75% (0.25%, 3.23%), and 3.06% (1.74%, 4.37%), respectively. The estimates were insensitive to adjustment for socioeconomic, smoking and health status, and were non-linear by different exercise levels.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study provide evidence that habitual exercise may prevent premature death attributable to air pollution.
Wong
Chit-Ming
CM
Department of Community Medicine, School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, 5th Floor, Faculty of Medicine Building, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China.
Ou
Chun-Quan
CQ
Thach
Thuan-Quoc
TQ
Chau
Yuen-Kwan
YK
Chan
King-Pan
KP
Ho
Sai-Yin
SY
Chung
Roger Y
RY
Lam
Tai-Hing
TH
Hedley
Anthony J
AJ
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000393:Air Pollutants; D003643:Death; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
D000393:Air Pollutants