Keep your Hearts Happy

Happy Hearts Need Clean Air
recent study in Denmark demonstrates the value that clean air in the home or other closed environments has on healthy heart function. In the study, cardiovascular differences were measured when participants breathed recirculated air purified with a HEPA air filter and then without the HEPA filter.Working from Copenhagen’s Institute of Public Health, Professor Steffen Loft, MD, DMSc, enlisted the help of 21 healthy couples aged from 60 to 75, all non-smokers, who lived near busy public roadways, in a two-part study.

During the first part of the study, the home of each couple was outfitted with a standard air purifier equipped with a HEPA (high efficiency particle air) filter which was allowed to operate for 48 hours. During the second part of the study, the air filter was used, again for 48 hours, but without the HEPA filter.

Measurements of each person’s MVF (microvascular function) were taken after each 48-hour period. Impaired function, or damage, to these tiny blood vessels is a known predictor of cardiovascular disease.

Continuous measurements of the air particles in the home were taken throughout both phases of the experiment. The HEPA filter removed about 60% more of the air particles, measured from coarse to ultrafine, than the air purifier did when operating without it.

Loft claims his team was “heartened and surprised” by the impressive improvement in MVF when the HEPA filter was used. Overall rate of improvement for study participants was measured at 8.1%.

Full results of the study, which indicates that the fewer the air particles in recirculated indoor air the better the MVF and thus heart health, are published in a February issue of the American journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a publication of the American Thoracic Society.