Abstract
Associations between prenatal household air pollution exposure (HAP), newborn telomere length and early childhood blood pressure are unknown. Methods: Pregnant women were randomized to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stove, improved biomass stove or control (traditional, open fire cook stove). HAP was measured by personal carbon monoxide (CO) (n = 97) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) (n = 60). At birth, cord blood mononuclear cells (CBMCs) were collected for telomere length (TL) analyses. At child age four years, we measured resting blood pressure (BP) (n = 97). We employed multivariable linear regression to determine associations between prenatal HAP and cookstove arm and assessed CBMC relative to TL separately. We then examined associations between CBMC TL and resting BP. Results: Higher prenatal PM2.5 exposure was associated with reduced TL (β = −4.9% (95% CI −8.6, −0.4), p = 0.03, per 10 ug/m3 increase in PM2.5). Infants born to mothers randomized to the LPG cookstove had longer TL (β = 55.3% (95% CI 16.2, 109.6), p < 0.01)) compared with control. In all children, shorter TL was associated with higher systolic BP (SBP) (β = 0.35 mmHg (95% CI 0.001, 0.71), p = 0.05, per 10% decrease in TL). Increased prenatal HAP exposure is associated with shorter TL at birth. Shorter TL at birth is associated with higher age four BP, suggesting that TL at birth may be a biomarker of HAP-associated disease risk.
Highlights
Over 40% of the world’s population is exposed daily to household air pollution (HAP) from the burning of solid fuels in combustion-inefficient stoves [1]
In exploratory analyses of the effect of cookstove intervention on newborn cord blood mononuclear cell (CBMC) relative telomere length (rTL), newborns of mothers randomized to the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) arm had, on average, 45% longer relative Telomere length (TL) compared with newborns of mothers randomized to the control arm (β = 44.8%, p < 0.01)
We examined the association between prenatal HAP exposure, as indexed by both Carbon monoxide (CO) and PM2.5, on CBMC TL and how TL at birth may be associated with future blood pressure
Summary
Over 40% of the world’s population is exposed daily to household air pollution (HAP) from the burning of solid fuels in combustion-inefficient stoves [1]. A meta-analysis of 24 studies with >43,000 adult participants found that shorter leukocyte TL was associated with increased risk for Toxics 2021, 9, 169 coronary heart disease (non-fatal myocardial infarction, coronary heart disease death or coronary revascularization; pooled relative risk 1.54, 95% CI 1.30, 1.83) and cerebrovascular disease (non-fatal stroke or death from cerebrovascular disease; pooled relative risk 1.42, 95% CI 1.11, 1.81) [16] To our knowledge, these observations have not been extended to TL at birth and markers of cardiovascular health in early childhood such as BP. We leveraged a Ghanaian pregnancy cohort derived from the Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study (GRAPHS) to examine associations between prenatal HAP exposure, newborn TL and resting BP at child age four years.
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