Journal of Inflammation Research (Nov 2021)
The Relationship Between Ambient Air Pollution and Hospitalizations for Gout in a Humid Subtropical Region of China
Abstract
Yi-Sheng He,1,2,* Gui-Hong Wang,3,* Qian Wu,1,2,* Zheng-Dong Wu,1,2 Yue Chen,1,2 Jin-Hui Tao,4 Xin-Yu Fang,1,2 Zhiwei Xu,5 Hai-Feng Pan1,2 1Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 2Inflammation and Immune Mediated Diseases Laboratory of Anhui Province, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Rheumatology, Anqing Hospital Affiliated to Anhui Medical University, Anqing, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 5School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Zhiwei Xu; Hai-Feng Pan Email [email protected]; [email protected]: Gout is a chronic disease caused by the deposition of sodium urate (MSU) crystals. Available data on the association between environmental hazards and gout are scarce. The present study was present to investigate the relationship between short-term exposure to air pollution and hospitalizations for acute gout from 2016 to 2020 in Anqing City, China.Methods: Daily records of hospital admissions for acute gout in Anqing from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2020 were retrieved from the tertiary first-class hospitals in Anqing. Air pollutants and meteorological data were obtained from the China Environmental Monitoring Station and China Meteorological Data Service Center respectively. We used a time-series analysis to explore the association between air pollution (NO2, O3, and CO) and hospitalizations for acute gout, and conducted stratified analyses by gender, age and season.Results: We observed an association between NO2 and hospitalizations for gout (lag 0, relative risk (RR):1.022, 95% confidence interval (CI):1.004– 1.041). For every 1 mg/m3 increase in CO concentration, hospitalizations for gout increased by 3.9% (lag 11 days, RR=1.039, 95% CI: 1.004– 1.076). Intriguingly, there was a negative association between O3 and hospitalizations for gout (lag0, RR=0.986, 95% CI: 0.976– 0.996). Stratified analyses showed that exposure to high levels of NO2 was considered to be more vulnerable to gout in cold season.Conclusion: Our study showed that short-term exposure to NO2 and CO has a significant effect on hospitalizations for acute gout.Keywords: gout, air pollutants, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone
